


To give a Cain repentance

by hollowlland, MadaraUgod



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Explicit Sexual Content, Hurt/Comfort, Incest, M/M, Psychological Trauma, Real Life, School, Underage Sex
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-26
Updated: 2020-10-17
Packaged: 2021-03-07 17:40:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 4
Words: 31,343
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26651566
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hollowlland/pseuds/hollowlland, https://archiveofourown.org/users/MadaraUgod/pseuds/MadaraUgod
Summary: "Little Sasuke would forgive if he was asked to forgive.Big Sasuke is not going to forgive at all. Big one does not know if anyone needs it.His forgiveness."This is totally AU fic you can read without knowing canon
Relationships: Uchiha Itachi/Uchiha Sasuke
Comments: 12
Kudos: 27





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SaDesa](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=SaDesa).
  * A translation of [Каину дай раскаяние](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/699028) by SaDesa. 

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to MadaraUgod for everything and inluvwnaruto for corrections.

If Sasuke had to pick one word to draw on his skin, it would probably be “equanimity” or “restraint”.

Perhaps he would have taken a few days to overthink such an important decision and only after that put himself under a thick drop of paint gathered at the tip of small brush. He can envision everything so vividly, that for a second, there comes a fear that the murky drop will eventually slide off and mess his notebooks.

He shakes off the daze so the others wouldn't see, blinks and turns his gaze to the window facing the garden.

Sasuke often becomes absent-minded in between the lessons and do his best to detach from the rest of the world.

The world that has his zero interest and even drives him mad at times. 

The world that irritates him with its brightness and loudness; irritates him by the way it constantly tries to involve him in something, imposing activities that he's simply not interested in.

Sometimes Sasuke thinks that he is being punished for something. His punishment even has a physical embodiment. Now and again it jumps out of the corner deafening him with numerous screams and subject him to an overly cheerful look. Covers like a wave, gets into the ears, causes a headache and only then hastily roll back when spotting Sakura's pink hair or remembering that he hadn’t dinner yet.

Sasuke can’t really understand how one can eat that much but remains silent, just out of politeness. Sasuke minds his own business and can only hope that one day cruel Universe will stop sending him those who can burst with joy at any moment, however…

However, the seat next to him is empty now, which only means that he won’t have any better luck. He’s cursed to expect other fate’s tricks for the rest of the week.

Just because he’s having too good of a day now. Just because his eleventh birthday was like that. So absolutely wonderful, memorable and vibrant. He was happy until late in the evening.

With the onset of night, he stopped feeling happiness at all. Apparently, he used up the entire reserve allocated for many years and paid for it.

Sasuke still doesn’t like the dark time and late phone calls. Sasuke likes very few things at all, and who knows whether he remembers what “to like” or “to love” means in general.

“To like” things, animals or people.

The latter are the worst, but Sasuke endures. He tolerates both his school and his circle for idiots united into teams for volunteer work. Sasuke is ready to put up with anything just to spend as little time at home as possible.

He needs to hold out until he comes of age and then everything will become easier. He will gain access to his share of the inheritance and move out. He’ll go somewhere far away from here, maybe he’ll leave the country, and then...

“Could you lend me a pencil?” Sasuke shudders, not noticing that someone is staring at his face’s profile. He only blinks for few seconds after the call while looking at Sakura who stopped next to his desk. Sakura who patiently waits for his answer and smiles so kindly as if Sasuke managed to save her life and forgot about it.

“Please?” He finally understands what’s needed from him and his fingers reach for the backpack. He finds what he was asked for without looking, by touch, and lends it to the girl. She gives a short thanks and returns to her table. Sakura is not a fool at all; quite a long time ago she figured out when to try to drag Sasuke into a conversation and when not to.

Sakura and Naruto are two with whom Sasuke started going in elementary school. Perhaps, these are his only acquaintances; they even call themselves “friends” of Uchiha’s youngest.

Sasuke sincerely does not understand why they need it.

However, he is grateful because when he wants company, this company is right there. It means that he’s grateful about three percent of the time and quietly irritated the other ninety-seven.

“Quietly” because only idiots can let themselves start public tantrums. “Quietly” because otherwise his guardian may be called to school and Sasuke can imagine what it will cause. He just can't stand all those whispers and curious glances and will withdraw into himself even more.

He can’t stand it and will kill anyone who crawl into his soul too persistently. Probably.

He can’t be sure if he actually will.

Not because he is not a maniac after all, not because the very thought that this will make him even more like his guardian is terrifying.

Because the last thing Sasuke wants to see is the face he hates so much appearing in his own mirror.

Because then he will definitely go crazy, and the matter will not be limited to a psychologist or a smiling and good-natured child psychiatrist.

Sasuke exhales, turns back to the window and waits for the last lesson without taking his eyes off the slowly flying leaves in the school garden.

***

He returns home when it’s almost five in the evening; slowly walks up the stairs and unlocks the door with his key. Leaves his backpack with textbooks next to the door and wanders through spacious corridor to take a bag of groceries to the kitchen.

He’s cooking to himself. When he doesn't have time or too tired, he goes to bed like this. On an empty stomach. And he don’t care that he can’t sleep until midnight after that.

They each have their own things and their own food.

They each have their own shelves and even dishes.

Not because guardian wanted it, not at all. This is the initiative of Sasuke, who would love to separate the whole house. He’d love to paint red borderlines at all the floors and surfaces if this was any possible.

Unfortunately, Sasuke can't enter the house without walking down the corridor, and his guardian physically can't go up to the second floor.

Yes, guardian – not brother. Sasuke vowed to himself that he won’t call him that even in his head, but occasionally makes mistakes.

Occasionally he wakes up in the middle of night and barely has time to clench his mouth with his hands.

In order not to cry out.

In order not to call.

Occasionally... not more often than once a month.

He leaves the bag on a cutting table, washes hands thoroughly and rolls up the sleeves of his uniform shirt. Takes out one of the small saucepans (painted in ridiculous purple polka dots) and starts cooking.

Hard to say that he is very skillful, but he is also difficult to call capricious.

He pours water and turns on gas... almost starts to peel vegetables but freezes with a knife in his hand hearing an insanely familiar quiet creak.

Quiet, it comes from the depths of the house.

The sound intensifies slowly; and Sasuke could turn off everything and fade away from kitchen for three times already. But doesn’t do it.

He stays and pretends that all he’s interested in is the stove and forever-empty spice jars.

There is no one to fill them, and therefore all of these simply collect dust on a long shelf.

Can’t get rid of it.

And why would Sasuke throw anything away if it always reminds him the origins of his hatred?

He’s fueled by it, as by something that gives him the strength to hold on.

Something that gives him strength to pretend that he lives all alone in this huge house and patiently waits for his majority.

All alone, and the source of a quiet metal creak in the corridor is just... one of the ghosts of his dead relatives.

Father, mom and elder brother.

Oh, Sasuke adored his brother! He did before, and now he prefers to consider him dead. It's easier for him. The feelings of guardian, who was appointed to Sasuke until he is twenty, just don’t bother anyone.

He can feel whatever he wants. Preferably silently and in the part of the house where Sasuke will never appear.

He doesn’t want to face.

Neither unnecessary memories, nor the one who moved into the guest room.

However, even on the second floor he uses only his room and bathroom. The other two remain locked.

The sound is getting closer and closer.

It is already possible to distinguish between heavy, irregular steps, and a grinding sound that emits a short metal pin when it meets stone floor tiles.

His guardian can’t walk without this cane.

The cane that would be too slippery without metal detail on its tip, and therefore each move leaves scratches on the floor. In some places, there are already whole furrows; deep potholes appear on corridor tiles.

Sasuke doesn't care about this.

Sasuke is all shivering inside because IT is very close and IT is about to stop near the table with all the chairs tucked in.

Guardian grabs back of a chair with his left hand, because it is easier for him to stay on his feet like that.

And he won’t come any closer. 

He never does.

Sasuke is even funny about it.

“How was your day?”

It's funny to Sasuke that he's still trying. It's funny… how he gets out into the corridor when he knows that Sasuke is in the kitchen, asks some questions, offers help with anything.

Throughout the year.

Softly, without raising his voice.

He’s trying.

Sasuke hasn’t tried even a single day and does not feel any guilt. Because he is not guilty at all. Why would he be?..

He washes fish, cuts vegetables, and cooks rice... all in silence.

Still can feel someone else's gaze on his back. They haven't come across directly for approximately three months.

Sasuke refuses to look his guardian in the eye or listen to him. Sasuke doesn’t like his facial expressions, his eyes, and his voice too.

Sasuke doesn't like everything about him.

Because the features of this face are one to one with his adored elder brothers.

Because disappointment tasted the worst of all feelings.

He finds old wooden spoon, hoping that he manages not to stain the shirt, and unemotionally ponders how much time he will spend on homework today. Is it possible to go to bed earlier or will he study until the midnight again? He should also start preparing a report for Kakashi-sensei. Would be nice to deal with it before the weekend.

“Do you need anything?”

Sasuke cuts everything so carefully and finely as if he was cooking for a toothless old man. Sasuke is playing for time and he definitely not going to turn his head back. Hasn’t looked at him before and won’t now.

He has more important things to do, and he certainly won’t waste time on looks or, heaven forbid, whole words.

His guardian didn’t deserve neither one nor the other.

As for standing - let him stand as much as he wants. And talk to the emptiness too.

As long as he doesn’t come any closer and doesn’t breathe with Sasuke’s air. And, oh, he won’t get Sasuke’s letters of appreciation from school. Fat chance! Sasuke won't give him even one.

Did not deserve it.

“Ok…” the sigh comes out, perhaps, too strained and heavy. Rough and husky. Sasuke would surely have noted that if he cared. Sasuke even gets out of rhythm his knife creates when hits plastic board. “I will not disturb you any longer. I hope you are doing well.”

He isn’t doing well! He is not!..

Sasuke wants to turn around, wants to jump up to him and scream right in his face. He wants to swing for a strike, hit with all possible might and then keep kicking with his legs, rolling unconscious body on the light floor. Sasuke wants to grab onto his guardian’s clothes and tug on them until it’s ruined. Sasuke wants to yell right in his face, but he will not do it.

He will never come that close.

He will never come so dangerously close, and will not allow anyone take away even a drop of his self-possessed resentment and anger, both protected for years.

Sasuke exhales through nose and moves to the stove.

The water has long boiled; it’s time to do something in the end.

It's time to pack up, make a dinner, and go to his room. He has a lot to do.

He has so many unimportant, empty, not bringing any joy affairs that it seems to be perfect time for him to psych out and tear apart a couple of notebooks. And maybe even get to textbooks later.

Sasuke has nothing else to keep himself busy.

Sasuke does not know how else to spend this and the next evening, and therefore rushes upstairs to prove to everyone that he is the best in the class.

To prove it to himself.

Sasuke can hear how chair back creaks behind him.

How his guardian pushes away from it, as he leaves, gets out into long corridor and suddenly stops, not taking three steps away from the kitchen door. He coughs, and, judging by the sound, leans back against the wall.

It takes him few long moments to catch his breath after getting through the coughing fit; and then Itachi slowly wanders towards dark guest bedroom.

For some reason, Sasuke freaks out so much that, when he closes the door of his room with a soft click, all so carefully prepared food goes to the trash.

***

The next day Sasuke is obsessed about this cough.

And the day after next, even in school, he can’t stop thinking about it and more and more drives himself crazy.

He’s wondering what will he do if it turns out to be something serious like pneumonia or some kind of infection. What will he do if his guardian is taken to the hospital; or if Itachi in his usual manner will wait until the last minute, forbidding himself to even think about asking for help.

Sasuke thinks that his guardian rarely leaves the house, and when he does, he prefers house’s backyard with a small garden rather to populated streets.

Sasuke begins to squirm restlessly on the chair by the end of the third lesson, and by the end of the last - his eye twitches. Because it all comes down to a nervous tic.

Because he is the one who should leave his parents’ house proudly in the end, slamming the door as loudly as possible, instead of staying alone.

What if that's the plan of his... guardian?

Damn it - almost called him brother yet managed to stop himself in time.

However, what if this is the case? What if Itachi purposely?.. What if he caught a cold and now purposely, slowly but surely, cultivates a small, harmless rhinitis into something way more terrible?

Damn, how stupid it is! To reason like this!

So stupid… so in the spirit of eldest of the Uchiha brothers.

Sasuke gets so lost in his mind that he chews on a pencil eraser, then catches himself doing this and barely copes with the surging disgust. What an abomination.

Now he came to that.

Sasuke is coming home when it’s almost seven in the evening; he deliberately stayed in school for few extra hours. Stayed in his circle for the weak-minded and those who want to change the world, and spent some amazing time listening how Ino and Sakura argue over whose turn it is to clean up the local park.

He’s going up the stairs and intentionally loudly slam the front door.

To show that he is back and ready for their fascinating three-phrase dialogue.

To let his guardian just crawl out of the room and say something.

Just let him be okay and Sasuke, with a clear conscience, will write off this damn sickness on some kind of allergy and continue to hate his guardian further.

With his cold, arrogant and calm hate.

With no paranoia creeping into the head.

Sasuke convinces himself that he’ll be taken to a shelter if Itachi is found incompetent, and it’s clearly worse than his life in an empty but huge house. In shelter, he will have to share a room, or maybe even a closet with someone else.

Sasuke flinches just thinking of someone staring at him asleep or touching his stuff.

Sasuke slams the refrigerator door and do the same thing to the other two lockers.

He makes as much noise as possible to stay uncaught in the fact of doing this for a reason… and nothing happens.

He manages to cook soup and stew beans.

Manages to make tea and even finds a tray to take all the food to his room.

Later on, he descends from the second floor again, after eating, to clean up after himself and washes dishes for longer than usual.

Yet he still can’t hear anything.

No squeak of door hinges, no sound of the cane crushing stone floors.

Then he just shrugs his shoulders, convincing himself that he absolutely does not care, and an hour later comes from his bedroom into the living room with all his textbooks. Leaves his stuff on a dusty glass table; drags a blanket out of his room and erases a thick coat of dust from an old, long-obsolete TV, which is still working for some reason. He stops clicking when finds a program with endlessly spinning pop songs and even manages to concentrate on studying.

Then goes upstairs twice more, and every time takes a moment to listen to the silence that surrounds the guest room.

Doesn't know what he wants to hear and already hates himself for this.

Thus, he sticks out downstairs until the night and then goes to sleep.

Goes to shower first, comes down stairs again to get the rest of his books, and then goes back to his room.

He’s trying to get comfortable but his own bed feels too rigid to him.

Trying not to think and not to inflate the atmosphere around, but the complete silence in the house almost takes bites of him.

After all, what if Itachi has died...

What if he doesn't breathe anymore? What if the cough had chocked him last night and Sasuke just didn't hear anything.

He’s turning from side to side in the bed.

In a while, it all comes to the point when he reads messages in school chat and succinctly answers to Sakura who asked him about his English homework. Who asked five hours ago, but does it matter now?

What in general could be important when he has already turned in bed three times and still cannot find a comfortable position?

What should he do?

He tries to lay on his back and even clasps hands in lock to avoid any distractions, but having counted to hundred, gives up.

Sits on the bed, and having sighed, walks to the door of his room.

Stops in front of it too.

After all, he has to hate someone, which means that this "someone" has to be alive. This "someone" has to suffer by staying here on earth, in his disfigured body, and not getting free from everything that easy.

Sasuke exhales once more, and continuing to convince himself that he acts out of purely pragmatic reasons, descends.

Does his best to do it as quietly as possible, in contrast to the demonstrative rumble during the day.

Tries to be quiet and therefore walks carefully and barefoot, knowing that it is easier to muffle steps like this. The carpeting on the stairs soon gives way to cold floor tiles.

He sneaks to the living room and for a long time just stands in front of the locked door.

Listens very closely.

And there’s nothing, absolutely nothing he can hear.

The silence is such that one can hear the wind rustling those few leaves left on trees. Silence is absolute… and scratchy.

Then Sasuke decides.

He finally decides to press on the doorknob carefully and slowly in order not to make a click. He’s opening the door slightly and looks into someone else's room.

And immediately recoils back when strong smell of medicaments hits him.

For some reason, he’s covered with the wave of something that looks suspiciously like a panic. For some reason, it is associated only with a hospice or a place that is even worse. Although, what could be worse than a hospice?

In household shrines, no one is suffering anymore at least.

Sasuke is listening like this peering into the darkness. When he understands that he can’t catch any sighs or exhalations for rather long, he cautiously makes his way inside, squeezing into the gap formed without opening the door wider.

It may be stupid, but it seems to him that this way the risk of being caught is a little less.

It may be stupid, but he sneaks inside, without stepping on the whole foot, and comes from behind to the one lying on the bed, carefully taking his eyes away from the cane, which is leaning against the nightstand and has such a worn handle that he can it see even in the dark.

Sasuke forcibly looks away from it all and freezes in complete indecision. He stops suddenly, right behind his guardian, and can finally hear quiet breathing. Hears those shallow wheezing sighs, which are about to go into whistling or barking coughing, and does not know what to do. Should he calm down because guardian is still alive, or on the contrary, strain himself even more because it can really be pneumonia and Itachi will never seek help from the medics himself?

Itachi will prefer to lie like this and continue doing nothing until the illness recedes, and if he is about to take any medicine, then it’ll be what he can find in the home first-aid kit. In the home first-aid kit which no one replenished for five years and all that ever was in it has long expired.

Which means it's not working.

Which means, he’ll only waste time and make it worse.

Sasuke keeps his mouth shut to avoid calling him a complete idiot aloud because he thinks that it will be too nice for Itachi. Not only did Sasuke came himself, he will also speak first! Well, no, enough of his feats for today.

He makes his way to the door just as quietly as he did before, and he’s terribly proud that not a single floorboard has creaked. He’s terribly proud that he didn’t wake Itachi up. And not because he is worried about it so much.

Or, more accurately, he is very worried, but only because he could be caught.

What if guardian will start to think that Sasuke cares... and how to dissuade him afterwards if they are not talking? If Sasuke isn't talking to him?

He returns to the room upstairs and still cannot pass out. He’s tossing and turning, suddenly feeling how his limbs froze under a thin blanket.

Devils himself and decides that it will be too merciful of him - just ignore this disease and give Itachi hope of getting rid of old injuries and feeling of guilt that soon.

Oh, no.

Too. Merciful.

Sasuke falls asleep only in the morning. Falls asleep when decided how to adjust his usual route so that he can get to the nearest pharmacy before the school.

***

The day is even longer than the previous ones; and a plastic bag with a couple of jars filled with pills does seem to catch his eye on purpose every time Sasuke reaches for his backpack.

Sasuke just doesn't know what to do with these now.

Maybe cold remedies won't help much, but in this case he will at least understand how serious everything is. But first, he have to give it somehow. Give damn pills to the patient, with whom Sasuke does not talk and acts as if he’s living all alone in the huge house.

He have to leave it somewhere so that his guardian doesn’t decide that this is the first step towards reconciliation or some similar nonsense. So that he didn’t decide anything at all, but just took these jars, opened them, and threw those pills in his mouth according to the instructions.

Silently.

Without making it up.

Fuck! Just think about it! He didn't get sick at all for a year and what now?.. He decided that he has the right to do so.

Well, no, stop lying in bed. He should sit and read his idiotic books or watch something. Sasuke has no idea how his guardian entertains himself being in voluntary isolation, but he will not let him get sick.

Just because.

Just because it’s time for Itachi to come down to earth and to somehow deal with this cough and high temperature, if he actually has the latter.

Sasuke starts scolding himself for not touching guardian's forehead, but stops in fright just in the middle of this thought.

What is happening to him? He needs to end this whole nightmare as soon as possible.

Stop it today!

Stop it today...

It seems that he even whispers it aloud because sitting nearby Sakura turns her head on him. It seems like it's none of her business, but she'll start caring and asking what happened anyway.

Sasuke is ready to screw up his face and wiggle his head negatively right now, in advance.

Yet she doesn’t say anything and stumbles in her notebook again.

Yet she has long understood when it’s better to simply lay off him.

Sasuke feels like a hedgehog until the very last lesson, and the others probably feel the same way. His last name sounds only on roll calls; no one asks his homework or calls to the board.

Which only makes it even harder for him to finish all the lessons; to get out of the school walls and then make himself to withstand calm walking, rather than stoop to the running.

He is not far from the house. Not that far.

He still has to decide how to give this medicine and keep his hatred intact. Keep everything as it is.

He flies up the steps to the porch and then into the house itself; suddenly stops to make sure that nothing has changed, and according to the established tradition, stomps into the kitchen. Leaves the brought package in the same place as always, on an empty kitchen table, and then, slamming the front door, leaves for groceries.

He always buys little by little, so that it could be enough for one time.

He always buys a little and usually the same. He’s accustomed to it; accustomed to a certain order and sequential actions.

This time he throws anything into the basket and does not even remember how he paid at the checkout. Returns home, and the first thing he sees is the untouched package left on the edge of the table.

His guardian wasn’t out of his room. He did not take anything.

Why did Sasuke even think he could check someone else's unmarked bag? Sasuke didn't think to attach the note, but not under any circumstances he’ll ever leave messages!

No, his guardian didn't deserve it.

Sasuke hangs around in the kitchen, does everything defiantly loudly, and even drops huge frying pan on the floor. He turns on the water and moves kitchen chairs, just making the room scream that he is already home.

Sasuke himself is ready to scream.

"Hey you! Go out at last and ask how I'm doing!"

The words struggle outward, but he forbids himself to let them out. He just forbids pronouncing at least one of them and keeps himself busy with the dinner. Stays the kitchen for another hour and even writes something in his school chat - of course, exclusively out of boredom - and in the end decides to eat in the kitchen too.

He’s trying to find comfortable place to sit for at least ten minutes, then eats as if he was hit on all of his fingers - terribly slow and dropping his chopsticks twice.

His back is turned to the stove, face - to the corridor and dark living room.

He eats terribly slowly and then washes the dishes, thoroughly wiping each item. Spreads everything in its places and, deliberately leaving the phone at the first floor, goes upstairs. Takes a towel and change clothes and goes to the shower.

Spends some time in his room, dries wet hair, and returns downstairs. To pick up the phone and only for that, of course.

Well, maybe it’s also to turn off the light in the kitchen.

Or maybe to stare at the damned white bag feeling an incipient hatred for all living things, the bag which no one except for him has ever touched.

Well.

Okay.

Sasuke carefully convinces himself that he will not freak out now, but when he nervously grabs the bag, he almost drops it off the counter.

Fine…

Confidently, he goes into the darkness of large living room, and without stopping to knock, opens the door of guest bedroom, in which this time even the curtains are closed.

Absolute gloom.

However, are Uchihas supposed to be afraid of this blackness?

Their own eyes are blacker than night.

Sasuke looks closely for a while, and after making sure that Itachi is really on the bed with the blanket pulled over his nose, he crosses the whole room and stops next to the nightstand heaped with all kinds of rubbish. Whisks away good half of this trash without even looking, and defiantly leaves the bag.

Turns around on bare foot, planning to leave as proudly as he came, but freezes in place very inopportunely remembering that it would be smart to check guardian's temperature.

Or just to make sure that the one lying on the bed is still breathing.

It's easier to think than to actually touch him.

To think is way easier than to take a step back and look closer.

It's good that everything can be done in silence.

In silence, by quick touch; and then Sasuke will be able to immediately pull back his hand as if from a poisonous snake.

Good plan, he does so. Without looking, he first slides on the flaming cheek with his fingers, and only after reminding himself why he does this at all, gets to the forehead. Wet, hot and with sticky hair, which Sasuke simply pushes aside without hesitation.

So that it does not bother him.

He pushes away without hesitation and, after hearing a weak exhalation, jumps out of the room, even forgetting to close the door behind him.

Sasuke almost gets face to face with the wall, and slipping on a tile, without slowing down, climbs to the second floor. He simply leaps through three last stairs and locks the door with a weak, flimsy latch; turns off the light and hides under the blanket. Squints heavily, to a nasty shiver, and does not understand why it is so difficult to breathe.

Doesn't understand why it is so scary.

And so painful too.

And this… stupid compassion.

Compassion that chokes him, squeezing his throat. Compassion that he feels not to Itachi, who, apparently, is really going to nobly await death in his bed, but to himself.

To that little helpless self who was locked up somewhere inside. To the one who idolized his elder brother and was ready to stay with him day and night. To the self that was ready to fight sleep and wait for him to return from the school only to sneak into the next room and climb into his bed.

Sasuke realizes now that it has never been normal.

Sasuke understands this with his rational part and the other, way less intelligent, stubbornly remembers many different things: how he brought his brother a glass of water to wash down the pills (spilling half on the stairs) and how Itachi was reading him funny book for children, his voice hoarse because of a sore throat. How they ended up failing ill together and Sasuke was so damn happy just because he had the same scarf as his brother.

The scarf he wore for two weeks after he recovered simply because... just because.

Tears choke little Sasuke who died on THAT birthday.

This, adult Sasuke, is now choked with hate.

And hate is to both of them.

It’s to himself and to… brother.

Brother who killed their parents and didn't even deny it.

He didn’t deny it in front of the police, who wrote off the car crush as an accident in which only the passenger in front seat survived, and he didn't deny it in front of little Sasuke who was left with animators that day.

Itachi knew that he was guilty.

It’s his fault that, always being a convenient and ideal son, he has changed at once.

Itachi never denied that he killed both of his parents by picking up a fight, forcing their father to take his mind off the road, so slippery after the rain.

Itachi never asked for forgiveness.

This is what always scratched and hurt even more than the past itself. Sasuke would forgive him if he didn’t distance himself, if he didn’t pretend that nothing had happened. If he didn’t leave Sasuke with a distant aunt from a province and stayed with him, instead of staying alone in a huge empty house.

This house, where his brother had lived for five long years and only then, in his full twenty-one, condescend to pick up Sasuke.

Itachi was already able to do something when he was twenty, and it looks like he simply forgot about his own brother.

Little Sasuke would forgive if he was asked to forgive. Big one is not going to forgive at all. Big one does not know if anyone needs it.

His forgiveness.

If anyone needs Sasuke himself or is it all just some sort of courtesy, stupid guardianship until his majority?

Why he took Sasuke home after all?

Why Itachi needs all these idiotic games of politeness?

Why is it all happening to him?

Sasuke feels as if he contracted an unknown disease. It feels as if he was poisoned, or caught a cold, or both.

It feels like strong hurt everywhere at once, and for some reason, the most tangible pain comes from a place behind the ribs.

Sasuke wants to wrap himself in the blanket, connect its ends tighter, and stay like this, forever in his room. In the room where the furniture is completely changed, the walls are repainted and there’s nothing left of his past, at all.

In a room where he is relatively safe.

Itachi would never go up the stairs.

Itachi...

Sasuke breaths out the air, that has somehow became hot and sticky, and slowly sits down on crumpled sheet.

There is nothing left of his brother. It’s a shell - polite, detached, and empty.

A shell with a guardian sign nailed to the forehead.

Because, apparently, it was necessary now.

Because he has decided that Sasuke had grown up enough. Itachi decided to do his duty and here they are. So simple, isn’t it?

Sasuke exhales, blinks in the dark, staring at dim white door, and gets to his feet again. He does that much more careful this time, using the wall for balance; much more careful and trying to figure out what he is about to do.

He’s going to check if his stubborn guardian, who was hoping to get rid of everything that easy, actually took the pills… or, maybe, he’s going to check if his brother was still alive.

Is there anything left of him? And if there is, how much remained?

If there is, how much have they become strangers to each other?

Step, step, step...

His way to the stairs was a kind of a blur.

Sasuke is shaking for real and doesn't really know what he's going to do.

Sasuke decides that it would be a good idea to get downstairs for a start.

To reach the door that he didn't close.

Keeps against the wall and wanders as if he is ill himself, when notices a strip of dim yellow light that has fallen on the floor.

He notices, by looking into the room, that the bed is unfolded and the cane isn’t there. He hears the sound of pouring water coming from an uncomfortable little bathroom, and the first impulse he gets is the desire to run away again.

However, he casts a cursory glance at the nightstand and can’t believe his own eyes when sees that the bag he brought is rudely torn. With great difficulty, Sasuke forces his naughty leg to get over the absent threshold.

Now, he is suddenly afraid to stay inside because he does not know – will he be driven away?

He is scared, but, having swallowed dryly, he closes the door behind him and pulls the handle until a resounding click is heard. Walks around the bed, spreads the sheet and, falling on the mattress, pulls the blanket over the head.

Sasuke is not breathing.

Sasuke is shrouded in a foreign smell.

There’s shampoo and sweat and something else, something much more frightening.

Sasuke takes a deep breath and closes his eyes.

He have always considered himself brave.

However, now he hides his legs under the blanket and curls up in one big bundle of nerves.

Now he’s just one big bundle of expectation and tension.

Sasuke almost dies when water is turned off. And he can hardly breathe when hears an exhalation and then a wet creak with which one usually wipes off a misted mirror, and a minute later - the grinding of metal pin on a tile.

Sasuke almost chokes; he’s not sure anymore that he knows why he came here.

He isn’t sure anymore if it was worth trying and only bites the edge of the blanket with his teeth and immediately closes his eyes.

He’s caught in a fever shivering and... waiting.

Waiting for words, but for some reason he can feel relieve when the cane knocks on the floor closer. All it will take is three steps.

Sasuke stubbornly reminds himself that he is not talking to his guardian. Yet he remembers it at completely wrong time, absolutely late – a second later Sasuke almost fells on the floor, when feels how the mattress bends on the other side.

Itachi, with his twisted and reassembled leg, is not so easy even to lie down.

Itachi has about half a hundred scars and healed cuts.

About a half a hundred scratches left of glass and metal fragments.

Itachi has something terrible instead of his left eye. Something that looks like a mess of black and red. Something that can hardly see, but as far as Sasuke can remember, still detects the light.

The eye was injured, but the face left intact... so it seems. Sasuke hasn't looked at Itachi directly for a very long time.

Sasuke imagines him as a teen.

The way he remembers it.

Thin, not so tall...

Sasuke chocks on air and feels the cord twisting his insides when the weight that has bended the free half of the mattress carefully pulls the corner of his blanket.

Sasuke doesn't fight for it as he would certainly do when was a child, but he doesn't help either.

Sasuke is paralyzed with fear, and that’s the only thing that keeps him from a bounce when his shoulders are gently touched.

With fingers, hot even through the thick pajamas. The whole palm swipes on the soft flannel, as if walking, and touches thin collarbone.

Sasuke used to sleep with him in one bed as a child. He didn't understand why it was forbidden. Sasuke may be stupid, but he doesn't feel like turning inside out in disgust even now.

He is worried, but that's all. Even the resentment retreats.

Sasuke wants to jump out of his skin when hot air hits the top of his head and quiet words “my boy” echoes inside his head.

Sasuke wants this weak voice to be silenced completely - because it hurts him, and without thinking, he turns around in order to seal other's mouth with his hand. Having twisted, he stupidly gets confused in a blanket, tries to push it away and gets lost completely. But stubborn he is.

Presses his fingers to other’s lips and chin, almost covers nostrils and makes the biggest mistake of all.

He’s looking.

He was going to scream, he was going to yell right in the face in front of him, anything from hateful "shut up, don't you dare tell me that!" to the fragile "why are you doing this to me?” He was going to scream, but somehow wilted at once.

He looks into the eyes that are directly opposite him, and the one that is crippled, interspersed with scarlet, seems demonic to him.

Itachi is hot, and it was completely unreasonable of him to get under water.

Itachi looks at him directly and impossibly close for the first time in so long.

Sasuke puts a hand over his mouth and Itachi doesn't mind. He only blinks, as if he was afraid that if he shakes his head now, he’ll really throw off these cool fingers and this palm, the center of which he touches with his lips - slowly, dryly and without taking his eyes of Sasuke.

Sasuke who now realizes he'd better not to come.

It would be better for both of them.

Sasuke thinks he's sick too. He picked up a particle of someone else's heat, and it immediately expanded and absorbed him.

His sickness feels bitter and strangely sweet.

Still alarming, but not scary.

The kisses are still dry and unhurried. They find their path from the center of the palm to the wrist, which Sasuke trustingly puts out allowing it to be squeezed by other’s hand.

With widely opened eyes, Sasuke watches the mouth that covers his skin where the blueish veins shine through.

He feels enchanted, feels confused.

Itachi had kissed him before.

To top of the head or to cheeks.

Kissed his bruises and abrasions.

It was cute back then. And it shouldn't be happening now.

It shouldn't be happening, but Sasuke watches those lips like bewitched and doesn't dare to withdraw his hand.

He knows that if he wants to leave, he will be let go. If he wants…

Touches are innocent, but only partially. Touches paralyze, make him blink less often, and Sasuke almost misses the moment when he turns out to be an object of a very intent glance.

He almost misses the moment when the other's left hand slides under his neck and Itachi becomes much closer.

Itachi takes his face in hands and gently strokes the cheek. He looks down from above, but not overhanging, and when he talks, Sasuke is simply afraid to shut this mouth again.

Sasuke listens and doesn't breathe.

“I know how guilty I am.”

Sasuke swallows, takes a deep breath intention to stop words to come, even shakes his head, but Itachi’s thumb touches the corner of his lips and he just can’t throw it off. He himself does not know why he acts like this.

“But I thought it would be better this way. Thought I was saving you.”

Touches are harsh, slow, and Sasuke unwittingly opens his mouth to make it easier to draw simple short lines on his skin.

Sasuke does not interrupt him. Sasuke still believes he wasn't expecting these words. He hasn't been waiting all this year.

“I thought I was saving you. Both from this house and from myself.”

Sasuke would be better interfere now, push him into the chest or even hit him with a just clenched fist.

Sasuke in principle needs to beat him until this face with the perfect precise nose becomes a mess. For every month, day, and year. But all that he's able to do now is to whisper roughly, and even this whisper feels overheated: “There was no need.”

Itachi immediately agrees and slowly lowers his head, freezing a few centimeters away from pressing against Sasuke with his forehead, burning even from a distance.

“Yes, I know.” He immediately agrees and looks in the eye.

He stares that way until Sasuke makes up his mind. Until Sasuke decides to reach out and, laying his palm on the base of other’s neck, slowly pull it down.

A little lower.

So that they could touch each other’s head now. So that they are in millimeters from each other and holding with hands.

Sasuke barely understands what he is doing as he straightens the blanket and moves a little closer to get his knee behind other's thigh.

To get comfortable on a squeezed mattress that was not changed as if out of some principle, and forgetting about everything, cuddle up to Itachi.

He cuddles up like he did in childhood; yet now he want to close his eyes not because of an all-consuming feeling of happiness or security.

Now he wants to hide. From the one in whose hands he rests.

His... elder brother, who turned out to be too refined and polite guardian, is all like fire now.

He’s all completely martyred by a cold and so completely ill.

Sasuke feels like there’s a dry flame all around him.

Itachi is also sick in the head.

Sasuke is convinced that his brother was mentally damaged and even admits it. Now he admits a lot. Maybe, he will even tell something if Sasuke asks. But for some reason he doesn't want to. Now he’s fine with all these not random touches and glances.

“It's too late to change anything,” Sasuke still keeps his fingers around other’s neck as he whispers after a while.

Itachi responds immediately and his voice is calmer than ever.

“Yes, I know.”

They both know and none of them is moving.

Sasuke would still be better take off to his room, pretend that nothing have happened and write off everything for a strange dream. Sasuke would be better climb the stairs and be safe, yet he seems to be bounded by this insane warmth.

Itachi would have let him go but it all comes down to the same "yet" and to the hands now touching his neck and wrist.

The first one is in pajamas, as in armor, the second is completely defenseless and naked.

Sasuke looks at him at point-blank range, until his eyelids start to get heavy and sticking together. Sasuke looks at him at point-blank range and fixes the blanket himself before he falls asleep. Stretches it higher, even checks how good Itachi’s naked back is covered.

Sasuke hunches a little harder, touches his forehead to the cheek and promises himself that tomorrow everything will be as it was set from the start. He promises to reassure himself that it was just a disembodied dream.

And now too. 

Especially now, when other’s lips barely touched his forehead; touched and immediately disappeared, not wanting to frighten youngest Uchiha away.

Tomorrow Sasuke will go to school, and when he returns, he will pretend that there is still no one in the house.

Sasuke believes it so much that he falls asleep immediately, without prickly nasty dreams and stubbornly ignoring the hand under his head.

And fingers at his waist, where treacherously wide pajamas are lifted, too.

***

The next day he comes back and right on the way to the house notices that the lights are on in the living room. He notices the light coming from not curtained windows and clutches a handle tighter in his hand.

He himself does not know how it happened, but he took much more food than it’s needed for one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading this:) Please, feel free to leave your comments below.  
> The original text is in progress, it now has 4 chapters. (i'm ready to sell my soul to read 5-th chapter right now)  
> Thanks to MadaraUgod for everything and inluvwnaruto for corrections.  
> I'M LOOKING FOR BETA, pls contact me if you have a little free time for this project -> hollowlandsstuff on tumblr  
> I have author's permission for this translation.


	2. Chapter 2

Sasuke feels like he is alone in the house, but he’ll be better not to delude himself.

It is fraught with danger.

He may be caught off guard anytime.

He maybe a little... unprepared?

Sasuke isn’t sure if he knows what is the right word here, and therefore focuses all his attention on the silence of the house and dark maroon mess he’s stirring in a small saucepan.

It’ll never happen, he thinks. He is not alone among these walls and these high ceilings. His guardian never leaves the house.

Sasuke might be caught unprepared... Although that sounds kind of silly, considering the banging sound that emits the cane with a metal pin on stone floors.

Sasuke hates this sound.

He finds it rather unnerving.

It makes him shrink even from afar, and when it’s right behind his back... He shudders involuntarily and almost persuades himself not to slouch. He persuades himself to stop humping his back and to think as if nothing have happened. Or, even better, to stop thinking at all.

He persuades himself to keep stirring this mess with a wooden spoon and make sure that the liquid isn’t boiling over.

He’ll be better to stop thinking at all... even about the fact that he already does not care, what taste will have his dinner today.

The tension around became tangible.

The tension has become the main thing that walks along the corridors of this house, and it seems that if Sasuke adapts himself, he can manage to snatch a piece of it out of thin air.

He can manage to catch and crumple it in his hands.

Sasuke is afraid that he will be the one who gets caught.

Sasuke thinks about it and immediately shakes his head violently, denying the idea itself and trying to get rid of it as quickly as possible. He's afraid! Just think about it!

No, no… he's being wary.

He's being wary… just a bit.

A-bit.

Sasuke exhales and returns to his simple cooking, deciding that he’s probably too young for the madness and it’s too early to admit that he’s going nuts.

Yet still, he keeps thinking... about the fact that nothing has changed essentially.

Not at school, not behind these walls, not in his head.

He still hasn't forgiven Itachi and he’s not going to.

He remains coldly indifferent, he nods in response or on the contrary, shakes his head, answers simple questions, and this is enough for all possible communication.

That's enough to start worrying about whether he, Sasuke, is making contact too much?

He thinks about those… dinners.

Sasuke is now cooking for two.

Silently, without emphasizing it or informing anyone.

He just cooks and that’s it.

He cooks, leaves the second portion on the stove and goes to his room.

They don't eat together.

They don't chat at the same table.

They don’t do nearly anything from the list of what they used to do a long time ago.

Sasuke doesn't need it at all.

He doesn’t want it.

He doesn’t want to hang out together downstairs so that Itachi could poke his nose in his notebooks, deciding that Sasuke needs his help with homework and giving those unnecessary explanations.

No, of course he doesn’t want it.

Why would he need it at all?

Why would he need all those touches, smiles, and presence?

No, it’s absolutely unnecessary.

Sasuke is not a little kid anymore. He got used to being alone in the crowd and can do it without much difficulty.

He’s stirring his to be dinner with a wooden spoon counterclockwise and for some reason couldn't bring himself to move away from the stove.

It's time to turn everything off and go to his room.

It's time to do his homework; ask Sakura and Naruto what’s new they have got in their cooperation project... Perhaps, he’ll even clean off the dust from numerous old shelves that haven’t been touched by anyone for years and throw away all the old toys that have long turned into dirt collectors.

Probably, yes, it's time.

Time to clear out some junk and to get rid of unnecessary things.

He's not a child anymore, he doesn't need all this rubbish.

Sasuke withdraws into himself so much that he flinches when the doorknob is clicked behind him, at the distance of the spacious hallway and living room.

He flinches, as if only now finally wakes up, hastily turns off the gas and reaches for the wall cupboard to get a plate.

What he was even expected, standing here with all those silly thoughts?

He didn’t manage to get away from here in time and now can enjoy that sound.

The sound of the cursed cane scraping on the floor.

Sound that’s getting louder and now it feels as if someone was scraping not on the tiles, but on Sasuke’s nerves.

Like as if someone was playing on these nerves as on strings and then pulled it with all possible might.

Itachi got better - he recovered long ago. Itachi remained polite and seemingly kind to him.

However, they have never talked about that night.

Sasuke have never gone to the first floor in the dark, not wanting to leave his safe zone, which lies right behind wide stairs.

Sasuke desperately believes that everything remained the same as it was.

Sasuke is a stubborn coward and probably a fool, but he can't even admit to himself that he wants…

He wants it all to change.

But he is the one who avoids those changes too. He stops everything himself because it’s how it was set from the start. There’s no different way here.

Itachi didn't deserve any different way. He just didn’t. Fuck all those confused, half-delusional excuses.

The sound of shuffling hesitant steps is getting closer and closer.

Sasuke, who took out the plate, haven’t moved since.

“Hi.”

Sasuke closes his eyes, and taking advantage of the fact that no emotions are visible on the back of his head, squeezes his mouth tight shut, as if his face cramped up. Maybe, he even can really feel the pain, but not physically.

“Are you all right?”

Sasuke turns slowly and with reluctance.

Sasuke turns and looks warily and sullenly.

He nods, with all his appearance showing extreme disbelief, but Itachi doesn't seem to notice it. Itachi smiles at him.

With an open, kind, and rather defenseless smile.

He smiles, leaning on this third leg, the one that constantly wrecking the floors. And no matter how hard Sasuke tries to look away, his eye still returns to Itachi’s face.

Sasuke, without meaning to, unwittingly, constantly stares at this face and compares.

He compares the features that he remembers and those, which he now sees in front of him.

They both grew up after all.

Sasuke doesn't know how to talk to him, and Itachi, realizing this, doesn't impose himself.

Itachi isn’t one of those who can beg for attention or try to tug on anyone’s heartstrings.

He’s just standing here.

And smiling.

If Sasuke smiled like that, his cheeks would already hurt.

Instead of that, everything already hurts inside him.

And “everything” is the most accurate word to use here.

Sasuke swallows, lowers his head, and finally filling his plate, goes to his room.

He wanders much slower than usual and almost stops near Itachi.

It was just like something caught and pulled him back to his brother.

It's just... Sasuke kills this feeling deep inside himself and squeezes past Itachi out of the kitchen.

Already in his room, he realizes that he did not take a spoon or chopsticks.

***

They always met in the kitchen.

It is kind of an established ritual or something like that.

They met in the kitchen, but Sasuke suddenly begins to suffer from nightmares, and he, after being tortured for a couple of nights, gives up and goes to sleep in the next room.

Well, he was going to change the room, but pushing the door open, he realized that he would die among all this dust if inhaled at least once.

He wanders along the corridor of the second floor and in the end, leaves this idea and returns to his place.

He still can’t sleep until the dawn.

He can’t sleep again.

Looks at the shelves with ancient toys, which he still didn’t throw away.

He looks at bleached out diplomas from elementary school and idiotic pictures left on the walls.

He looks and understands that he’d be better throw it all away.

He lies like this until it’s time to go to school, barely makes it until the evening, earnestly hoping that he will not fall under the wheels of some careless cyclist.

Such as Naruto, for example.

Naruto, who rides without kneepads or a helmet and is often bruised due to being too close to all the thorny bushes in the area.

Sasuke isn't like that.

Sasuke is much more careful.

Sasuke wanders home, almost touching his shoulder to the rough facade of some gray building, and when he gets there, he deliberately walks another circle around his house and three neighboring ones.

In order to get exhausted completely and collapse.

As soon as he comes in the house.

No stupid dinner.

Tomorrow is a day off, so he doesn't have to worry about homework.

He doesn't have to worry about anything.

All he needs is just to come and fall on his unstuffed bed.

Sasuke himself does not remember opening the front door and taking off his shoes.

He can't remember climbing the stairs, purposely ignoring the solid rail.

He loosens a tie on the go. Pulls the shirt over his head without undoing a third of the buttons, ignores his pajamas and doesn't even wash his face.

Sasuke falls on his bed, barely getting out of the trousers.

He pulls a blanket over his head, closes his eyelids and... can’t fall asleep.

He doesn't sleep.

He’s turning in bed tiredly.

He can feel how springs of the mattress press on the back and cannot get comfortable, find a right position.

Nothing changes in next hour and Sasuke finally realizes that insomnia, accompanied by a gray lifeless skin together with circles under his eyes, will bring him to school psychologist in the best case. He exhales and gets into the corridor holding the blanket like a cloak.

At first he was turning in the direction of the next room on second floor, but remembering the dirt and dust reigning inside of it, he changes his mind, and not really realizing what he was doing, heads downstairs.

Almost without raising his eyelids, as if already immersed in a dream, he gets to the wide sofa in the living room, and going around useless empty table next to it, almost falls on the seats.

He wraps himself up in a blanket more tightly and bends her legs.

Sasuke thinks that it probably looks stupid from an outside perspective.

He must be looking like an overgrown caterpillar that will never pupate.

Fuck that, Sasuke doesn't care.

The upholstery is cold, and it is pleasant to press forehead against it.

Sasuke just passes out, finally slides into some pleasant nowhere without nasty dreams.

He isn’t in his room for the first time in a year; isn’t in the security that had become hostile to him.

He sleeps for a long time, calmly, without changing the position.

And wakes up as abruptly as he passed out, and figuring out where he is, jerkily sits down and almost falls, entangling his legs in blanket cocoon.

He grabs the shabby sofa back with his palm and just looks at one point for a while.

Sasuke looks towards the window and do his best to understand whether it’s a dawn already flickering behind the glass or is it only a sunset.

The sun slowly comes up over the horizon, and Sasuke realizes that he has spent at least twelve hours here, downstairs.

Moreover, he didn't hear anything during this time.

He never woke up, hearing the sound of loud steps.

Sasuke glances at the door that leads to the guest room and blinks in confusion.

Didn't Itachi come out at all?

All this time?

He chose not to disturb Sasuke and stayed without supper.

What a sacrifice. Itachi, the missionary.

That’s so in the spirit of the eldest of all Uchiha.

Stupid, idiotic, unnecessary sacrifice.

Sasuke is angry, he even throws away a pillow that he didn't notice when came downstairs, then gets to his feet and goes upstairs.

He desperately wants to take a shower, even if it won’t help him, because it seems that everything is scratching and itching from the inside.

***

Sasuke really begins to believe that someone has cursed his room.

And the next one, into which he wanted to move and even washed everything there.

He can't sleep, and that's it.

He can't sleep at all.

Yet somehow, it's just fine downstairs, on the couch.

There, he goes to sleep immediately, even without having time to look at the guest room door.

He just doesn't care if he bothers Itachi or not.

If he does, then guardian can do all his business when Sasuke is not in the house.

He is very welcomed to do whatever he wants.

Almost all day is at his disposal.

He can scrape floors where he wants and as much as he wants.

Itachi has come out with his duty questions only twice in the past week, and Sasuke pisses off.

Without any "unexpectedly".

Sasuke surely hates that Itachi seems to forget about him.

He hates it so much that, having cooked dinner as noisy as possible, he comes to do his homework downstairs.

On this very sofa, now inseparable with Sasuke’s pillow and blanket.

He sleeps here for four days straight and feels fine.

No insomnia, no sticky disturbing dreams.

Sasuke thinks that someone definitely cursed his room... the walls themselves.

But that's okay, this can be sorted out over the coming weekend. So far, everything is JUST FINE.

Sasuke feels like a hedgehog, ready to be rude to anyone, and apparently, people around him feel it too. They do not bother him anyhow.

Almost no one is revolving around him.

However, this "almost" is exactly what makes him angry.

He cannot keep his own evil inside.

It's too dark for him, here in this house.

It's too dark... to be alone?

Sasuke clenches his teeth and spreads notebooks on the low table.

It's quite inconvenient to write - he has to sit bent over, and he certainly can study upstairs, but...

But here he is.

In the living room.

With a towel on his shoulders and hair still wet after a shower.

With a bunch of tests that he needs to pass.

Here he is... alone as usually.

Make this “usually” just a little bolder and Sasuke, unable to cope with himself, will throw something at the closed door of guest bedroom. He even can guess that his own phone have good aerodynamic properties for such a flight.

However, Sasuke is still holding on now.

He’s putting little nice checkmarks in the necessary little nice boxes with a pencil.

He carefully reads the text and almost jumps up when suddenly hears the click coming from the closed room.

The doorknob has just turned.

Sasuke swallows, leans even lower over the table, and immediately cursing himself for doing this, bites down on the eraser on the end of the pencil.

Itachi isn't going to scrape the hallway tiles.

Itachi walks towards him across a soft rug that hides the sound of his footsteps.

Sasuke only sees him with his outward vision.

“Can I sit here with you?”

Sasuke doesn't even breathe and stares at the paper in front of him. Sasuke should hiss a proud “no” and dive into his assignments. Sasuke should, but in reality he is only enough to slowly lower his chin without changing his face expression.

Nothing has changed on his face.

He’s almost proud of himself.

He would be proud if he did spit out this evil “no”.

And so... so he only shifts his things to the side and then shifts himself too.

A little bit.

Freeing up the space.

The space that is quite enough on the huge long sofa.

Sasuke blinks, realizing that he was actually offering to sit next to him.

Sasuke is about get the jitters because Itachi, despite the fact that he himself asked, does not move.

Will he really change his mind and leave again?..

“Do you know where the remote is?” Itachi smiles gently.

No, Sasuke will definitely get sick in the head with him. With this politeness and regularity of movements. With benevolence oozing from every hole and crevice.

“It's okay if I turn on the TV?”

“It’s ok” he replies through clenched teeth, and only then realizes that he ignored the first part of the question. He understands and looks up, wanting to announce that NO HE DOESN'T KNOW, but they meet with gazes and Sasuke freezes only having time to open his mouth.

Itachi looks at him with his head bowed slightly and leaning on his stick.

He looks, still standing in front of Sasuke. Sasuke, who only chanced a quick glance on the content of his brothers disfigured eye socket, jumps up, and looking around, finds what Itachi was asking about.

He finds it on the TV cabinet.

Grabs the remote without thinking, and pressing the button, throws it on the sofa and returns to his place to take up the pencil.

Sasuke silently praises himself for not looking.

And scolds for twitching like a moron.

What even got into him?

Itachi comes up after all.

He comes up when a picture appears on the dusty screen, and carefully, awkwardly dragging his leg, sits down.

The cane is put aside, but so that he can reach it with his fingers if needed.

Sasuke can't help but notice.

Even if he really doesn’t want to.

“Can we talk?”

Sasuke was waiting for this all the time. Here is this question. Sasuke has been waiting for it for several weeks and he would like to spit out another “no” or shake his head negatively.

He would like to, but… there’s another thing that he really wants and is stronger now.

Another thing that forces him to unclench his lips and clarify:

“About what?”

“Anything you want”

Itachi is the very politeness and gentleness. Itachi seems to be close but between them at least a quarter of a meter now.

“About school. About teachers. About your grades. Even about girls. Do you already have a…?”

Itachi talks so much... Itachi seems to be carefree and just tries to chat with him.

Just for fun.

About nothing.

As it befits friends or brothers.

Or at least acquaintances.

Yet Sasuke turns to look at him as if he was fucking sick. He was already unable to bear it. The paper couldn't keep his eyes.

Sasuke feels his eyebrows slowly rising up. He turns slowly too and now already looks directly in the other’s face.

“Are you kidding?”

“Not at all,” Itachi is still kindness embodied and seems to be really talking without any subtext. Itachi even pulls his head into his shoulders a little, as if embarrassed and leaning back (but for some reason Sasuke doubts that it is worth taking at face value). “I just…”

“Just what?” Sasuke interrupts him and becomes very proud of himself at this moment. Proud of the metal in his voice. Proud of how heavy and harsh it sounds, with hidden condemnation and open contempt.

Sasuke is the youngest, but that won't stop him from defeating his elder brother.

At least mentally.

He is sure of it.

Itachi seems to be sure of something else. He remains unruffled, shrugs his shoulders, and sitting sideways, rests his hand on the sofa back. It's more convenient for him, apparently because of his leg.

“I'm interested, that's all.”

Oh, he is interested. Obviously. What else would it be?..

“You never asked before,” Sasuke looks down but still doesn't turn away. Now he looks at shirt-band in front of him, looks at collarbones and at the jugular notch but not at Itachi’s face.

"You haven't talked to me before," Itachi reminds him quite evenly, without reproaching, but Sasuke hears it all anyway and flashes out.

Sasuke immediately wants shift the blame on his brother. Because he is to blame, he is! Only he!

"It's you..." Sasuke even starts, opens his mouth, but meeting the eyes in front once again, he shuts up.

And Itachi, damn him, pretends not to understand why.

“What?” He raises his eyebrows, ignores the telly he allegedly intended to listen to, and stares at Uchiha’s youngest, “Come on, finish talking, Sasuke.”

Finish talking than. Yeah. Okay. As you say.

Sasuke shrugs and lowers his head at last. Picks up the pencil again.

«School can be tolerated. Teachers too. The grades are ok,” he enumerates it without any emotion in his voice, and after reading the next question, puts a faint, barely noticeable tick in one of the boxes. He’s not sure if it was the correct answer. He’s not sure if he even understood the meaning of a single word he just read.

The telly grumbles to itself softly, the pencil scratches the paper... Itachi moves a little closer... Sasuke can now see the edge of his knee without even turning his head.

Sasuke has an irresistible urge to get upstairs or even into the garden.

Anywhere.

He even doesn’t mind staying without homework.

That's not the problem now.

“And the girls? You didn’t answer about the girls,” Itachi reminds as if nothing had happened and he’s clearly going to insist on an answer. But why would he need that? Why even ask about such a nonsense? He’d be better to inquire about the report card. Even that's more interesting.

“Do you like any?” Itachi asks again.

Damn it... He got this stupid chatter about nothing.

The chatter, to which Sasuke just shakes his head. Unambiguously and without hesitation. “No”.

“I think they like you,” Itachi seems to say it thoughtfully and completely at ease. And fingers to Sasuke's face he reaches easily too, as if he does it every day. As if he was used to stroking his brothers cheeks and holding him by the chin, “So beautiful.”

It was as if he was used to turning Sasuke face to himself and moving.

Closer.

As if it's normal for him to stare like this at close range.

As if only Sasuke is ready to die here and now.

“You…” Sasuke begins to speak, grabs Itachi’s hand to take it aside and freezes, squeezing his fingers just below the wrist. He freezes, catching how the pulse beats under the shirtsleeve.

Sasuke is being caught.

He notices it himself. Itachi pretends not to understand what’s happening.

For Itachi, nothing seems to be happening yet.

“What? I don't do anything,” he even says.

Equanimity in the flesh. Equanimity with a low straight ponytail and a dark shirt.

Sasuke is confusing even more by this blatant impudence. Sasuke is almost physically unable to pull his fingers away.

“You're blushing like a kid. Have you ever kissed?” Sasuke chokes on a sigh at the last question. He almost starts to cough but only strongly clutches the pencil in his palm.

“You...” Sasuke starts to answer but stops for a moment as soon as he notices how the eyes in front have narrowed and become more attentive… become colder.

“You have no right to ask me such things,” Sasuke only manages to say.

However, it had no effect.

“So yes or no?” Itachi's voice changes.

Elusively, barely.

His voice is both the same and not.

The tone is light-hearted and playful but somewhere little deeper the metal is felt.

Sasuke bits his tongue and it seems that he can sense salt in his mouth.

Sasuke, who considers himself a bit detached yet organized adult person, is so lost now.

“I...” he gasps and immediately pauses. He pauses and cannot look away.

Itachi has the scariest eyes, especially the crippled one. It became demonic.

Itachi certainly doesn't scream and would never do that. His voice is quiet, which only makes it more pressing.

“Tell me.”

Sasuke is all focused on those spots resembling black commas. Commas, which collected from a damaged pupil on scarlet iris background.

“Technically, a guy kissed me last year,” Sasuke himself does not understand how he manages to pronounce such a long sentence. He wishes it sounded more sarcastic and unserious, but… but he barely talks now. The last one he can only whisper at all: “Does it count?”

"Accidentally?.." Itachi asks again immediately, and the fingers with which he is holding Sasuke's chin tighten a little more. They scratch Sasuke’s skin with nails; press on it but not too much, “And did you like it?”

“What?!” Sasuke is outraged so sincerely that he comes to life right there. He comes to life and finally throws off other's hand. He pushes it away from his face, and in a fit of an anger, moves forward himself, “Of course not. He's an idiot, and it all happened by accident. He just fell on me, and that's it!”

“But you remember that,” Itachi is directly opposite and still unperturbed.

At least it seems so.

Itachi seems calm, but just one look on how he squints…

No, he can't stop doing this. His own eyes betray him right now.

Only the eyes show everything.

However, Sasuke is so angry that he doesn't notice anything around him. Sasuke lowers his head and feels both cheekbones and neck flare up. Just like it happened back in a long school hallway.

“How can you don’t remember when the whole school laughs at you?”

Sasuke was really ashamed back then. Sasuke felt awful. Sasuke doesn't want to remember how exactly it...

“And yet, how was it?”

Itachi does it again. He touches Sasuke’s face with his two palms only. Raises it, drags towards himself, pulls it closer in one movement and touches his lips with Sasuke’s mouth. Without any delay or warning.

“Like this or...”

Sasuke's heart stops.

Because of a simple touch of dry lips.

Because of a short, blurry touch, followed by nothing else.

Nothing, except for the spasmodic stomach and the trembling fingers.

Sasuke forgets that he is deeply hurt.

That he doesn't talk to THIS at all. That he does not remember his name.

“Itachi...”

He doesn't remember the name. Which he utters without intention and cannot bring himself to blink. On the contrary, he only stares with his eyes wide open. His lips, which were only barely touched, burn like on fire now.

And it seems that he is the only one who suffer like this.

Itachi's the same fucking polite. Unperturbed.

For him, there’s nothing wrong happening.

For him, everything is par for the course.

“What?” Itachi asks evenly, keeping so close, holding Sasuke’s face five centimeters away from his own and not allow twitching or moving even a bit. He looks first in the eyes, then at the lips. Looks directly and nothing confuses or scares him.

Literally nothing.

In contrast to Sasuke, who is either delighted or terrified. Or in the power of both these feelings at once.

“You're my...” Sasuke begins to answer this 'what?' and chokes on the answer. Because to say the last word is beyond his power. He forbade himself this very word. He forbade it!

However Itachi didn't. It's easy for Itachi.

“Brother?” Itachi finishes the sentence and nods lightly after, “Indeed. Do you recognize me as your brother again?”

He asks a new question, and Sasuke, of course, shakes his head as violently and negatively as he can.

“No!”

Of course he doesn't!

He is against it!

He is against it and will never again... He freezes, confused, frightened, and with his mouth wide open. He freezes and does not know what to do.

Where to run, and most importantly...

Should he run?

Should he run, especially if one looks at him like that?

Itachi doesn't seem to be upset by this answer at all.

Itachi smiles even wider than before.

“Then it turns out that I can kiss you in a different way” He concludes aloud and reaches for Sasuke’s face again. Everything happens more slowly this time, and Sasuke has few moments to start kicking and pushing him away. Sasuke manages to push him in the shoulder and knee. Sasuke pushes him on the trick, not bending knee and hears stifled exhalation full of hidden pain.

Sasuke immediately freezes and stops moving.

He freezes, scared half to death, and instinctively, not even having time to comprehend what he is doing, touches Itachi’s sore leg with his warm palm, as if wanting to take away the pain caused by his own movements.

Sasuke feels so guilty that he gasps at the feeling.

He’s choking, as if he breathed in whole lungs of water, and does not know what to do to finally exhale.

He’s welling up.

He feels choked up, blinks with force, wanting to drive away unwelcomed, evil tears, and opens his eyelids with the feeling of someone else's lips on his.

Again.

However, he won’t be released so soon this time.

This time, he isn’t moving at all.

He fears so badly.

Now he is trembling and does not know what to do. He doesn't know what to do with the hand that has slipped from his cheek onto his neck, and he doesn't know where to go from the second one that grabbed and crumpled the collar of T-shirt it in order to pull Sasuke closer.

Sasuke doesn't know.

He doesn't know why he relaxes his mouth.

He doesn't know how he survives, feeling the tongue touches his lower lip, and quite unexpectedly, how a pillow touches to the back of his head.

He doesn't know what to do with his hands, where to put them. Doesn't know until they themselves grab someone else's elbows.

The left one remains in the place, the right one for some reason moves upward, to the shoulder and the neck.

The right one wants to be higher.

It wants to press on the back of the head.

Sasuke is dying every second because of not knowing what he is doing.

Because of his own courage.

Sasuke is afraid that Itachi will move on, and that he will step back.

Sasuke doesn't know which one of these options is more frightening.

He doesn't breathe because he’s afraid that the oxygen in the lungs will ignite.

He can feel others tongue on his, how it moves teasing. Sasuke regrets that this hard sofa won’t swallow his up.

This is not like what happened in a school hallway.

This is no accident.

It's like... to kill him.

To kill him now.

Itachi grabs him across the waist and moves back only once, to look; to look into the slightly opened eyes with pupil dilated because of either shock or surprise.

Then he becomes closer again and presses with almost all his weight, somehow managing to lean on only one leg.

And despite what Itachi does to him, despite the fact that it doesn't look like any of the kindred kisses that Sasuke was receiving in the past, he feels like Itachi’s little brother.

Like he used to feel before.

He understands.

Understands what they had before.

He understands and he is no longer afraid.

It's not scary to get lost in all this. It's not scary, because if he ever was in someone's hands, then in these.

The hands that for some reason pushed him away, instead of leaving close by.

What a fucking idiot Itachi is.

"Idiot..." Sasuke even seems to whisper that aloud. He whispers that somewhere in others mouth or cheek. He whispers, without thinking, feeling how hot Itachi’s skin is, how it presses on the chest, and for some reason deeper inside too, on a place under the ribs. Presses and pulls his whole chest aside. “You are such an idiot!”

Sasuke wants to beat him so badly that he can’t stop himself.

He hits Itachi’s back and lower back with a clenched fist, pounds his ribs with palms and even hits his brother upside the head.

Then, calming down, pulls his neck into his shoulders.

Because Itachi, shuddering from the latter, moves away from him, rises to his arms and briefly, barely perceptible touches his lips to Sasuke's forehead.

He does it quickly and right before steps back.

One touch and it’s over.

Itachi leans back and clinging to the back of the sofa to sit down at last.

Sasuke doesn't even like looking at his brother, however Itachi, having placed his leg comfortably, acts as if nothing had happened. Itachi reaches for the remote and starts clicking the channels, looking for something watchable.

He’s not going to leave.

Sasuke's lips and face are burning, so does everything inside.

Sasuke sits up apprehensively and swallows druly. He touches his lips with his fingers, and only when finally understands how it looks from the side, pulls his hand away.

“I'll sit here with you, okay?” Itachi is a calm benevolence embodied.

Sasuke can barely hold on so as not to slap a notebook across his face. Barely, very barely. With the last bit of his strength.

“Do you need help with homework?”

Sasuke wonders who will offer him help if he eventually fails with his humility and remains the last of the Uchiha.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Well, this chapter is the reason i decided to translate this fic

It's kind of stupid, but... it always fascinated him.  
To watch as drops of water rip from his fingertips and break on the water surface of a filled bathtub.  
It's kind of stupid, but now everything that happens in Sasuke's life actually seems incredibly stupid.  
Both in school and at home  
At home... All that happens at home is just one endless performance with a single clown constantly performing on an arena.  
He, Sasuke, is performing.  
And the most disgusting thing is that he understands everything, as if he sees his own actions from the outside, and cannot do anything with himself.  
Sasuke shakes his head and looks down at ancient, yellowed with years tiles of bathroom and then again at his wet fingers.  
He continues this clumsy entertainment with drops, thinking that he simply does not know why he neglected the shower and got into the bath.  
He doesn’t know why he spent so much time on it, and in general, why did he suddenly wanted to clean up this old cast-iron trough.  
He just made it up.   
Out of the blue, really.  
He hit on the idea, or rather, the idea hit him right in the top of his head and now Sasuke lies here like an idiot.  
Well, at least he didn’t forget his pajamas, or a towel, or even a toothbrush, or shampoo that was always falling from the shower shelf.  
At least it's good that one can't forget his own head.  
Or, on the other hand...  
Sasuke wouldn’t mind leaving his head somewhere, for a day or two.  
Or maybe... for a week?..  
And then, all the nasty thoughts will fall out of it, and if Sasuke’s lucky, even get lost somewhere. So that they stop coming back to him during lessons or homework. So that they stop bothering and confusing him.   
Because now Sasuke feels like he is confused.   
And he also feels like he sees everything crystal clear.  
Sasuke is his own fool and he doesn't even thrashing about that.  
Sasuke is a fool because Sasuke is both stubborn and will never admit it aloud. He will never stop resisting, even if he does not know what he is resisting exactly.  
He exhales, looks at an old, dim with time mirror that hangs a little aside and leans back, resting his head on the side of the bathtub.  
He needs to think about his lessons and about the last school year; however, in this house he is only able to endlessly listen to surrounding silence.  
He is only able to rush home after school.  
When things turned out this way?  
How much time have passed since the so-called braking point?  
It’s weeks or months?  
Well, it isn’t days, right?  
Sasuke wants to press on his temples and squeeze his head until it bursts. Maybe this way he’ll get rid of unnecessary and sometimes frightening thoughts.  
Maybe this way he will be able to stop overreacting or even stop bothering at all.  
He’ll send everything to hell and... oh, damn it - he hears it.  
He hears how a door lock clicks and how the cane with metal pin finishes off once perfect stone flooring.  
Sasuke freezes and forces himself to keep the eyes closed.  
Wait, wasn’t that the reason he decided to take a bath on the first floor?  
What, no? No, it wasn’t?  
Sasuke clenches his teeth and realizes that no matter what he shouts with blushing cheeks and for how long he’s blazing with righteous anger, he will never be able to deceive himself.  
Sasuke is so tired of the constant self-deception that he simply grabs the slippery sides of bathtub with his palms, and straightening his back, pulls his knees to chest and curls up into a little ball right in this hot water.  
Sasuke isn’t waiting - that’s for certain.  
In fact, he’s here only by chance.  
He just listens to the metal scraping the stone and the sound of moving steps.  
Sasuke isn't pissed off that after this one incident on the sofa, after being kissed and groped for almost half the night, he was ignored and not noticed for a whole week. In that very sense. Except for this - everything is fine. They even have all those empty talks.   
Everything is fine, there’s nothing to annoy him.  
And why would it annoy him?  
Is there a reason?  
Should he even count on someone else's attention?  
All this is so strange.  
All this... The sound of steps becomes very close and finally stops.  
Sasuke squeezes his own shoulders and waits.  
Sasuke realizes that he will just jump to his feet, as he is - naked and wet, and rush into the corridor with something rather heavy at the ready if Itachi will stand there for a moment and then leave.  
He even begins to look for this very "rather heavy" thing, but the one standing behind the wooden door that is not even locked, knocks softly and the youngest of all the remaining Uchiha exhales. And only the devil knows, whether his exhalation is caused by relief.  
The one behind the door knocks and immediately asks if he’s allowed to enter.  
Sasuke, of course, says NO and hopes to remain ignored.  
Oh, he really hopes now... and instantly writes it down as the next item in the list of claims to himself.  
He’ll be better like Sakura or Ino.  
He’ll be better like anyone instead of getting… this.  
This all.  
Itachi hesitates, and Sasuke already decides that he will leave. Sasuke bites his lip, hunches even more, touches his knee with his forehead and remains in this position when the doorknob, old and loose, turns with a bang and his elder crippled-not-only-on-his-leg but apparently on-his-head-too brother looks inside.  
"I said no" Sasuke mutters gruffly before Itachi even speaks, and with some masochistic pleasure waits for him to leave. He waits and immediately thinks that maybe it serves him right.  
That it actually serves both of them right.  
They will keep sitting in the opposite corners of the house.  
Because Itachi has been a fool all these years.  
Because Sasuke is a fool now.  
And no matter how much as he wants to grow wiser, he only clenches his teeth harder and pulls his knees closer to his chest.  
He spasms both physically and mentally.  
In order to prevent himself from admitting.  
“I thought that your no didn't sound convincing enough” Itachi's voice is soft as always. Itachi's voice seems to go in contrast with the scrape of this ugly cane. The cane that Sasuke hates with his entire being and he would love to throw it away if he could.  
Would love to get rid of it like of a damn reminder.  
Reminder both about the accident that happened many years ago and about its consequences with which Itachi has to put up and live today.  
And Sasuke has to put up with that too.  
Whether he wants it or not.  
Sasuke, who silently and reluctantly turns his head towards the newcomer and can’t hold his indifferently-angry face when Itachi, putting his stick aside and clutching the cast-iron side of the bath, kneels right before him.  
Itachi kneels, slowly and strongly clenching the fingers of the left hand.  
“I suddenly thought that once, when this bathroom wasn’t for guests yet, I often bathed you in it. Do you remember?”  
Sasuke can only nod.  
Slowly and realizing that he is not breathing.  
Sasuke can only look down and force himself not to frown as he watches how the damn, forcibly bended knee rests against a hard tile.  
So it turns out, that this knee still bends.  
If pressed mechanically.  
And this probably hurts.  
This... should somehow reflect in the eyes and on the face.  
Itachi smiles at him and holds out right hand; offers to give him a sponge.  
Sasuke would have left just a month ago. He would get up and left with a deep sense of pride. Just a month ago, Sasuke would never come here hoping that Itachi would think that he could show up.  
Now Sasuke swallows and carefully, to avoid touching Itachi’s hands, gives what he was asked for and clasps his fingers into a lock at the level of his ankles.  
Sasuke stares ahead, at an old plastic drain stopper, which he could not clean.  
He persists in thinking only about chips on the enamel and not about careful touches to the shoulders and hands.  
He persists in thinking about the homework he did a long time ago and not about the fact that Itachi is probably having a hard time standing like this, leaning on his knees.  
That must be painful.  
Sasuke would never ask him to get up.  
Let him suffer if he wants to.  
Let him…  
Itachi doesn't seem to notice any inconvenience.  
He whips up the foam, returns to Sasuke's shoulders and washes his back, and neck, and his hands too - everywhere he can reach. Itachi isn’t asking to straighten up or change position, he doesn’t say anything at all.  
He keeps touching Sasuke with a sponge and that's it.  
He does that for a rather long time, apparently, until he gets bored.  
Or the knee pain won't become unbearable.  
Sasuke already thinks that he will get up at last, but Itachi pushes the shampoo closer, and scooping a handful of water, wets Sasuke’s hair.  
Sasuke now finally turns to him and does not even know how exactly he looks: confused or still scared.  
“You don’t want it?” Itachi asks and doesn't even look him in the eye; he stares at the shampoo label - what an important thing to do now, what an important information.  
“This is strange.”   
“Why?”  
“Because I’m not six years old anymore” Sasuke retorts and finds words quite convincing. Well, he thinks so until he hears a calm answer:  
“Sometimes I feel like you're actually six years old, Sasuke.”  
Sasuke, who is so incensed that he chokes in a fit of rage. Sasuke opens his mouth to come out with it all at once and realizes that he doesn't know what to say. Not a single damn word is on the tip of his tongue. Not even one. However, Sasuke is actually much older than six. Sasuke knows how he can answer to his offender in the end. And he does that.  
He splashes water from the bathtub on Itachi’s face and believes that he has managed to prove that he is an adult.  
For the first three seconds.  
While water still flows from Itachi's cheekbones as he silently sits with his eyes closed.  
And then, having blinked, he asks again as if nothing had happened:  
“So, do you want me to wash your hair?”  
Sasuke looks at the drops running down his cheeks, at the strand stuck to his forehead, at the fact that he is still kneeling on the damn cold tiles, and biting down on his cheek and an inner stubborn idiot, nods.  
Yes, he wants.  
Into these hands.  
Yet he can’t manage to scrape up some courage to say it aloud and stop being such a fool constantly snooping around the first floor.  
Sasuke wants to, but instead of saying or at least just coming to talk normally, he does… this.  
He’s snooping downstairs. And talking nonsense. Both.  
Sasuke is still offended, Sasuke wants to forgive, but whom can he forgive if forgiveness was not asked?  
Itachi does not run after him with confessions, Itachi rarely asks how he is doing.  
Itachi... simply is in this house.  
They have those empty talks sometimes.  
They sit next to each other on the sofa.  
They had dinner together a couple of times.  
That’s almost an idyll.  
"May I sit with you", "how are you?", "thank you".  
Sasuke both likes it in a way and actually wants to shoot himself.  
Sasuke shudders and does not know whether to step away and distance, or vice versa, step on himself and lean closer.  
To distance not because he doesn’t like it - on the contrary, it is pleasant when Itachi touches him - Sasuke wants to twitch because, well, he is proud after all. Sasuke still feels like he hasn't been persuaded enough. Still not enough.  
Sasuke thinks that he gives up too easily and at the same time, he is afraid that if he is too stubborn, everything will happen the way he "wants".  
Which means that everything will remain as it is.  
Everything will remain like "may I sit with you", "how are you?", "thank you".  
Sasuke clenches his jaw, moves closer to the side of the bathtub and tilts his neck. He puts himself closer, so that Itachi can wash the top of his head more comfortably, but keeps an expression of great favor on his face.  
He puts himself closer and makes his face look as unhappy as it can be.  
And he does not breathe at all.  
And hopes that he will not die.  
He prays for his life but waits when long, cool in contrast to the water fingers will be tangled in his strands.  
He waits and promises himself not to twitch or exhale.  
Not to gasp.  
Sasuke only allows himself to cover his eyes a little.  
Because it makes sense.  
Because it’s to protect his eyes from that soapy mint foam and not because his head is spinning.  
Not because he feels like he was hit in the head - slowly and strangely sweet.  
Very nice.  
Itachi is in no hurry. He doesn't pull Sasuke’s hair.  
Itachi, of course, is delicate and cautious. He strokes the skin with the pads of his fingers, and whipping up the foam, massages the temples.  
Sasuke couldn't open his eyes now, even if asked to.  
Sasuke himself did not understand when he grabbed the bathtub’s side with his right hand and stretched his neck.  
He didn't understand when relaxed and opened his mouth, and breathing exclusively through it, allowed Itachi to slowly pull his hair and throw his head back a little.  
He believes that this is to prevent the soap from getting under the eyelids.  
Only for this.  
Sasuke still believes in that, even when Itachi touches his cheekbone with his long fingers all covered in the foam.  
The cheekbones, and the neck, and the line of collarbones... and even the mouth.  
And yet, it does not feel bitter.  
Not at all.  
The foam turns out to be tasteless.  
Even if he tastes it with his tongue.  
Even if he collects it from other's fingertips by putting his lips around it.  
Even then.  
It’s not bitter.  
It's just scary to open his eyes and turn his head. It's scary to unclench fingers with which Sasuke continues to hold cast-iron side.  
It’s scary to a buzzing sound in his ears and a sensation of nasty cramps in his fingers.  
Sasuke himself doesn’t know what makes him feel this way.  
Maybe the fact that what Itachi’s palms do now is still limited to innocent touch - but it’s only for now. Or that there will be different touches and these hands will find their way down. Sasuke immediately thinks about his own knees for some reason. That Itachi could run his fingers over them too. Straighten his legs and... Sasuke blinks harder and forces himself to push away the phantasm.  
He returns to the original list; there’s already too much of everything, too much of what he fears.  
For example, that Itachi will try to kiss him again.  
And that Itachi won't?..  
Sasuke just narrows his eyes and waits, preferring not to do anything on his own.  
Why should he, after all?  
Ok, so be it, he will wait - and then, perhaps, he will descend upon Itachi. Maybe Sasuke’ll even tolerate other's lips on his own but only with an indifferent expression on his face.  
That's how it should be, yes.  
That’s the only way.  
Sasuke waits and gets it in the end.  
He hears quiet exhalation and the creak of either the knee or a sole of other’s shoes.  
Itachi slowly gets to his feet and reaches for the shower as if nothing had happened.  
He turns it on, regulates the water and together with the soapy foam washes away all the delusion.  
Sasuke doesn't know if he should be angry about this.  
He shrinks like a sparrow and throws up his hands in protest when, putting the shower back in place, Itachi at the same time pulls the stopper out of the tub draining all the water.  
Sasuke spits out fresh water flowing all over his nose and cheeks and immediately gets a towel across his face without having time to say anything.  
Sasuke raises this unexpected gift higher not to wet the edges, and glances angrily at his brother’s back.  
He looks up to Itachi and this is what gives him confidence.  
Because Itachi is no longer looking at him.  
Itachi scratches floor with his cane all the way to the door and leaves without saying goodbye. All so mysterious.  
Why the fuck did he even come?  
***

As expected, Sasuke cannot sleep.  
Sasuke honestly tries to do it in his room but only tosses and turns from side to side.  
Sasuke even convinces himself that he doesn't want to go downstairs and that he's just too lazy to clean up the next room.  
He's too lazy to clean up this whole mess, okay?  
That is what it is – laziness.  
Grinding tiles is much more interesting.  
Tile is not a dusty carpet.  
Cast iron is not a wooden bed frame.  
Besides.  
The second.  
The second floor is not the first.  
Sasuke cannot sleep on the second.  
Sasuke is turning in his bed, throws away the blanket and waits, waits, waits – all for the sake of some vague decency, or just for himself and his hope that something will click in the head and make him stay here for a whole night.  
He waits for some more time and then, as usual, he takes his pillow and barefoot, ignoring the slippers, gets out into the dark corridor and goes down to the sofa.  
Where a spare blanket is waiting for him.  
What even carried him to the second floor this evening?  
Sasuke got used to sleeping downstairs, but today... For some reason he decided to stay in his room after having done his homework for tomorrow.  
Oh, that was it. He stops at the threshold of the stairs and remembers why.  
Why he stayed in his room.  
Itachi had this atypical urge to watch TV and Sasuke had this usual idea to play independence once again.  
Sasuke decided that after the bath it would be too much to stay by his side.  
Sasuke decided that since Itachi went out without saying anything, there’s no need to follow him.  
Too much honor.  
Let Itachi run after him.  
However, in the end, the result Sasuke gets is an insomnia.  
In the end, so much time wasted. It’s gone literally nowhere. In vain!  
And all of Itachi...  
Sasuke shakes his head, ruffles his haphazardly dried hair, clutching a pillow under his left hand and angrily straightening his (not actually lifted) shirt, descends into the dark living room.  
Unfocused, he rubs his tired eyes and stops, rooted to the spot, right in front of a low table.  
It's too late to go unnoticed.  
It’s too late not to notice weirdly flickering TV working on the verge of audibility.  
What is even shown in there?  
He blinks uncomprehendingly, looking at brother’s cane, dim in the darkness and leaning against the armrest, and then frowns.  
His blanket is already occupied.  
And his place too.  
Sasuke can go to hell.  
Sasuke even thinks to turn around and really get away in the first couple of seconds, but after thinking a little more, he remains.  
Sasuke suddenly realizes what his fucking mistake is.  
It was him.  
He alone does it.  
Continues to do.  
For some reason he's waiting for something.  
Sasuke closes the eyelids, exhales and raises his head.  
He puts a pillow in front, as if it could replace him a shield, and takes another step forward.  
One part of him hopes that Itachi is napping. The second hopes that he doesn’t.  
The second one is luckier.  
Itachi isn’t sleeping.  
He’s watching pictures on the screen and generously pretends that this is the only thing he sees.   
Only when Sasuke freezes within arm's reach, Itachi moves his eyes onto him, and oddly enough, he doesn't say anything or even makes his duty smile.  
He only looks.  
He looks detached and tired, and it's like some other Itachi.  
Some stranger, not the one who overcoming the pain would kneel down to fool around.  
And Sasuke feels like a fool next to him.  
He becomes nervous and chokes with his own thoughts clogged in the mouth, as if they were pieces of something now unrecognizable.  
Of words that seemed to be lined up and were about to be uttered.  
“You...” Sasuke begins and immediately pauses for a second “…sort of took my place”.  
He can feel how something hurts in his throat and suddenly begins to ache behind the temples.  
Sasuke suddenly just can't stand this gaze.  
He’s lost as if among the crowd and almost surrenders.  
Almost, because Itachi instead of engaging in dialogue or apologizing, as he certainly would have done before, just throws back an edge of the blanket.  
Itachi silently raises an eyebrow as if asking yes or no.  
And Sasuke, who always put on such airs during all their previous little hassles, bites his tongue now. He wants to be persuaded. He came downstairs secretly hoping for that.  
He looks into those strange eyes, now mismatched by the will of a terrible accident, and realizes that his whims won’t get a piece tonight.  
“Yes” means “yes”.  
“No” means “no”.  
Sasuke has never been stupid... Sasuke looks at Itachi's arm bent at the elbow, covered by the free sleeve of a dark shirt, at a slightly disheveled tail... at the line of cheekbones and at the calm unreadable expression on his brother's face.  
Everything seems to be quite safe.  
These are the hands he wanted in, aren’t they?  
He is not asked, but he’s invited.  
Sasuke can deal with this.  
Sasuke won't get hit by lightning if he agrees. And then, shouldn’t he get some sleep? Maybe Itachi will feel uncomfortable after a minute and he will leave himself?  
Anything is possible.  
Sasuke leaves his pillow on the table, and coming closer, first sits and then carefully lies turning sideways.  
At first, he was going to keep as distant as possible, stretching his arms along the body, moving away and not touching as much as the place allows. But there is no place.  
And he can only place his head on other's shoulder.  
He can only stay by other's side.  
Only cuddle up to other's body.  
Into other's warmth.  
Sasuke forgot all his previous thoughts almost immediately.  
Almost immediately, as soon as he is comfortably covered with the blanket and pressed down with the hand, which is innocently laid across his chest.  
First, Sasuke laid down with his back to warm chest, spent few long minutes there, at a distance of five centimeters and then turned around himself.  
He twisted, almost felt off the sofa and cuddled up closer.  
Awkwardly, pressing his forehead on Itachi's collarbone, pulling his hand on his shoulder and immediately, figuring out that it’s pretty uncomfortable, placing it higher on the neck.  
He cuddled up squeezing his leg between other’s, and nearly died without seeing a response.  
Sasuke shrank and closed his eyes.  
He almost died... Waiting for Itachi to come back to life and pat him on the shoulder blades, and then on the lower back too. Waiting for him to hug, first weightlessly and then with some tangible strength.  
All-right.  
Now he can breathe.  
Sasuke shrinks and rolls lower, almost hiding his head under the blanket.  
He breathes hot air that does not want to clog in his lungs together with the smell of other’s skin and shower gel.  
He breathes half the time and fidgets, not knowing how’s better.  
Higher or lower.  
Comes to the point that… it is not important.  
He can be closer either way.  
Sasuke tries this and that.  
He huddles closer without opening his eyes, almost goes crazy from tactile contact and can’t restrain himself from a noisy exhalation when Itachi's palm rests on his bare lower back.  
The shirt has lifted as expected, and Itachi's fingers hit exactly there, on the strip of naked skin.  
They hit and climbed up, pressing on the vertebrae.  
Sasuke is trembling; he feel warm and pleasant and seems to be thrown back somewhere into a distant childhood.  
Sasuke even smiles at this, and biting his lip, almost decides to say it aloud; but the fingers slide down his shoulder blades and don't linger on his waist this time.  
They dive under relaxed, long-stretched elastic of Sasuke’s home shorts.  
And well, this is not like in childhood. Not at all.  
Itachi used to bath him and put him to bed, read stories to him and carry him on shoulders. He used to hug him and kiss cheeks and the top of the head. Itachi was the person he loved the most in the whole world. Itachi... probably is still loved now.  
But... Itachi doesn't want to kiss other people's knees anymore.  
Or... or Itachi still looks for echoes of things that were once familiar to both of them.  
Maybe he wants it as much as before.  
Only now it is different.  
In general, everything is different.  
Sasuke isn't sure if he's ready for this.  
Sasuke isn't sure about anything at all.  
He is warm, he is pleased, he devilishly likes the way something inside pulls the entire body and twists with the heat in the lower abdomen, but... he is not sure.  
Maybe Itachi was right, and they never had anything "normal".  
Maybe they always had too much power in everything.  
Can be.  
Now Sasuke is the only person in the room who’s thinking about it.  
Itachi obviously has no problem.  
Itachi changes the position of both of them frighteningly quickly and now hangs from above, leaning on his hands.  
Itachi now looks at Sasuke, who is scared of everything and nothing in particular and almost does not blink.  
Itachi actually locked him between arms and does nothing.  
He only looks.  
And the shadows that are cast on his face by the nearly silenced TV are almost demonic.  
Sasuke feels mesmerized.  
He feels so stupid and small.  
Sasuke is quiet and squeezes into the old upholstery with his shoulder blades and he only stares.  
He feels wide awake, he feels warmth coming from the inside.  
His entire body burns, even where Itachi’s hands did not touch him.  
Sasuke doesn't know what will happen next. He does not know, but he wants this very “what”.  
Even if it scares him.  
He is the first to come to life and cautiously stretches his palm forward.  
For the first time since that story with elder brother’s illness. When Sasuke, after plucking up the courage, came to other's bed. He himself didn't know why, but he came.  
He stretches his palm forward, touching a smooth cheek, and holds it like that wondering if his hand will be thrown off.  
And, of course not, it won't be.  
Itachi reaches out for the touch himself, tilts his head and opens his mouth so that Sasuke can stroke the lips with his thumb.  
Sasuke, who suddenly got sick of playing pranks and pulling his favorite arrogance on the face.  
Maybe it's all because of insomnia.  
Maybe it is the heart of everything.  
Sasuke decided that he will deal with this afterwards. Or maybe he won't. He had already suffered enough after all.  
He's done.  
Enough for him already.  
He looks straight ahead and tries to fumble for the blanket that has slid to the back of the sofa. Tries to fix it as it was, to drag it onto Itachi’s back.  
Sasuke thinks it would be nice to just lie there in silence and kiss all night long.  
Not thinking about the fact that he’s here with his brother.  
Not thinking that he might oversleep or not show up for the first lesson at all.  
Sasuke dares a little more, touches Itachi's lower lip with his thumb and presses a little to open his mouth.  
He smiles weakly, hiding his embarrassment, and swallows hastily licking his dry lips.  
He thinks that his further actions won’t be unexpected, won’t appear out of thin air... It will simply be.  
Sasuke doesn't know where to look.  
He’s happy to be surrounded with twilight.   
Sasuke presses the back of his head against the pillow, squeezes on it as much as possible, and moving his palm, holds on the back of Itachi’s head; even becomes a little proud of this initiative.  
Because he does it all by himself.  
He's the first now.  
He’s offering.  
He opens his lips and meets the first kiss with a quiet, hidden smile.  
He meets Itachi with an embrace and, unable to resist, even pulls his leg onto him. He's even closer now, feeling even more comfortable on this couch.  
He would probably be more comfortable everywhere like this.  
Sasuke grips the edge of the blanket to pull it higher before hugging Itachi’s neck and stroking the back.  
Before stroking the back and be surprised that it's somehow too hard.  
And the shoulders too.  
Where would the muscles come from?  
Where would it come from if Itachi spends all his time as a recluse in one single room?  
Sasuke gets lost, confused by his thoughts, and focuses on the sensations of his fingertips.  
He leads his fingers down, and clinging to the folds of the fabric, lifts up Itachi’s shirt; drags it up not for a second thinking that perhaps it is too bold for him.  
He wants to see it all.  
And the scars left after the accident too.  
He wants to touch them directly, without stupid fabric.  
He wants to stroke and touch... If he won’t dissolve by the time the shirt will be taken off. If he will not dissolve under leisurely, still almost innocent kisses.  
Still just a touch of one lips to the others.   
Just touches and some soft, pleasant strokes.  
Sasuke doesn't know what to call the feeling they give birth to.  
Sasuke decides that "security" is the closest.  
He wins Itachi’s shirt after all; pulls it off, and throwing it to the floor, for a moment meets his brother's eyes and begins to touch everything more actively. He stoking all the back and lower back; leads his hands among Itachi’s waist and above touching the barely perceptible lines of the ribs.  
Even if it tickles, Itachi doesn't show it anyhow.  
Itachi’s quiet as before, looks closely and almost touching with his forehead to Sasuke’s; tickles him with his long strands and waiting for something.  
Maybe he is waiting, maybe not.  
Maybe he is fine with everything as it is, in this melted, wordless silence.  
Sasuke finds flourishes on his skin.  
One, second, third.  
Sasuke finds signs and marks of old wounds.  
Sasuke wasn't thinking that there are so many of them.  
Sasuke even gets lost and doesn't understand.  
It even seems to him that a hit on his brother's left side was clearly not from the accident. The scar is too rough and fresh.  
Sasuke opens his mouth to ask and falls silent at once, bumping into the forefinger on his lips.  
“Shhhh...” Itachi is still staring at him. And smiling too.   
Itachi smiles at him, and it seems to Sasuke as if his crippled eye is somehow strangely illuminated in the dark. It seems that Itachi - both attractive and scary - is demonical now.  
Itachi seems to be someone else.  
Not a person who needs some pathetic stick to get around. Not a person who speaks in a low voice and always uses "hello" and "please."  
Now Itachi is different, completely unfamiliar.  
Alien.  
His gaze isn't the same too - with a squint and almost without the familiar tenderness.  
This is how one looks on a prey.  
And this is exactly how Sasuke feels now, trapped between his hands.  
Sasuke only now fully understands that he actually lies under his brother and there’s a solid sofa behind him. He understands that he can neither turn nor even exhale.  
And this is alarming.  
Sasuke tries to speak again but Itachi stops him just like the first time. Stops, forbidding to destroy everything and, of course, at this exact moment the unattended tv goes out.  
Because the timer went off.  
Their father set a timer once so that the box would be cut off by itself if the one sitting in front of it fell asleep.  
Apparently, an hour of inactivity had passed and now they are left in complete darkness.  
Sasuke is ready to spit out his heart.  
He is much more excited than scared.  
His jumped pulse simply makes him to choke.  
So do those hands, which ceased to be chaste in a moment.  
It seemed like Itachi was waiting for this darkness.  
Now he presses with all his weight and gropes Sasuke quite seriously, even if he is in no hurry to deprive the youngest of the clothes.  
Now Itachi’s holding him tight and touches tangibly, it seems that everywhere at once.  
At least that's how does it feel to Sasuke, who can feel the lips on his cheek, and almost immediately on his chin, and then on his collarbone.  
Sasuke doesn't fight back, but he doesn't help either.  
He is paralyzed.  
He does not know what to do.  
He wants, and... well, he’s not afraid but does not know… how.  
He only clings to the bare shoulders in response and stupidly, like a fish thrown ashore, gasps for air with his open mouth.  
And then chokes on the ghostly pronounced "my boy" and almost whimpers, feeling the first serious hickey blooms on his neck.  
Slightly painful and viscously sweet.  
Sensitive and pulsating.  
The first, then the third, and the fifth.  
They go down in a chain above and below the collarbone, under the stretched edge of his soft sleep-friendly shirt.   
Under it’s interfering collar.  
Itachi is angry about this old piece of cloth.  
Itachi, as expected, wants to rip it off and does so.  
Sasuke is scared to be left without it, but he doesn't have time to argue.  
He opens his mouth and bumps his teeth into the stitching on the collar.  
Sasuke tries to slow down something; he grabs Itachi by the hair with his fingers but only holds them softly, only feels it even brighter.  
He only bends in the back involuntarily because it turns out that touching these silky hair is so nice.  
It’s so great that he bites his lip, and feeling how hot his cheeks feel, pulls the strands a little harder to pass them between his fingers.  
He really, really liked this feeling.  
So much that he concentrates on it and cries aloud, not ready for a slightly painful bite just above the nipple.  
Or maybe it’s not that painful?  
It's just that everything has become too sharp.  
All the feelings.  
Sasuke himself is sharp now.  
Touching him pricks.   
Sasuke himself wants it to be continued and fears the consequences.  
Sasuke breathes through his nose and still it seems to be way too loud.  
Especially when he gets bitten again.  
Lower now.  
Where it is more painful and more pleasant at the same time. Itachi bites him but don’t retreat immediately licking an imaginary wound on the chest.  
Nipples, solar plexus, and a straight line to the navel – all’s covered with a chain of hickeys and bite marks… Sasuke with horror remembers about PE lessons and realizes that he will never enter school locker room again.  
He’ll never undress at school.  
Ne-ver-mo-re.  
Especially after Itachi takes a long time to torment sensitive skin over the elastic of his shorts.  
He bites it, as if rolling between his teeth, squeezes and pulls Sasuke’s skin inside his mouth, turning it from pale pink to purple.  
Somehow, the leg doesn't really preclude him from going lower and lower. By some miracle, it does not hit against the armrest.  
And that is nothing short of a miracle.  
Sasuke is ready to die from all this right on the spot, he feels how everything presses from the inside, but as soon as Itachi grabs the notorious elastic band of his shorts he jumps up and jerkily sits down, pushing away other’s hands.  
He breathes as if he had just miraculously ran away from the train; and now he is seriously afraid.  
Now he is scared.  
Now it finally dawned on him.  
“Stop!” He cries out, and his voice is high and sounds girlish. Sasuke shouts this out and sits pulling his knees up to his chest.  
Small and pathetic.  
This is probably how Itachi sees him.  
Itachi, who managed to keep a calm and neutral expression on his face.  
“Do you have someone?”  
For the first second, Sasuke doesn't even believe that he hears exactly what he hears. The question strikes him as terribly strange and illogical. Terribly stupid and out of place.  
“No!”  
Why is he asking it at all?! Why is this?..  
“So what is this about?”  
Itachi reaches out for him, and Sasuke is forced to drop onto his back again, remembering the other's trick knee. Sasuke would not have the heart to shove him away and hurt again.  
“Why are you afraid?”  
Sasuke is still breathing heavily, so much more defenseless on his back.  
Covered with a foreign body like with a living warm blanket.  
They apparently threw the real one down.  
“This is…” He starts talking and immediately stops. He starts talking and immediately looks away; turns and looks at the dark old TV shining in the dark with a glass lens.  
“What? Too much?” Itachi knows what he's talking about. Itachi is older and doesn't seem to be under any pressure. Itachi is patient but now his voice, still measured and calm, seems to be all somehow false and rattling: “Wrong? Or scary? What is this, Sasuke?”  
He asks, and the youngest remaining Uchiha exhales through his nostrils and forces himself to turn again.  
He should look at the interlocutor when talking to him.  
He shouldn't come off as a coward.  
There’s nowhere to run now.  
“All at once.”  
“So what? So what, Sasuke? You want this. You really do” Just a moment ago, Sasuke decided that he should look ahead, but now again... he cowardly turns away again. It’s too much for him. He's feeling hot. He is feeling like pulled in all directions at once. “And I want this too. Stop torturing us both”.  
“I don’t…” he objects and immediately runs into such a rebuff that he involuntarily recoils back, bending his knee as before and touching other's side with it.   
“You torture me every day. Every single day. When you keep showing up here downstairs. When you spend hours in the kitchen waiting for me to ask how you are doing. When you do your homework and constantly look at the door of my room, and after that you defiantly turn your nose up. Stop being such a hypocrite. Give it to both of us.”  
The latter was said especially viciously.  
The latter was said as an order.  
Sasuke is taken aback; he lowers his head involuntarily; his voice immediately sinks to a whisper:  
“To give us what?”  
“An opportunity to be together as before.” Itachi softens a bit yet Sasuke has a chill on his skin.  
They were, yes.  
They were together as children.  
They were together most of the time, but...  
“We… we didn’t…” Sasuke wants to argue, Sasuke remembers everything clearly, Sasuke knows that there was no connotation; but all the words just scatter from his tongue. All the words disappear, leaving him only a lonely, helpless and pathetic phrase. Which he exhales in the end, continuing to stare at the dark screen: “It wasn’t like that.”  
“But now you want it to be that way. You want it, Sasuke. You want me not only to wash your hair, but also to put you to bed. And you will have the sweatiest dreams.” Itachi whispers all this in his ear, and Sasuke does not tremble anymore. Sasuke doesn't know how he still hasn't fallen off the couch. Sasuke fucking shakes as if being bitten by some unknown exotic creature and... He wants everything he is now promised. He really, really wants it.  
He wants it and he’s ashamed of it.  
He squints, blushing with cheeks and regretting that pride - but what is pride there? – its pitiful remainings will prevent him from covering his face with hands now.  
They will prevent him from simply hiding by pulling the blanket over his head.  
“Say, Sasuke...” This voice - quiet, soft, so close and familiar, now twists him outward and Sasuke almost howls because of this. Sasuke isn't even cornered. Sasuke is already climbing the walls and nothing can be done about it. Nothing.   
“Tell me that being with me is what you've always wanted”.  
“And if it’s not?” Sasuke doesn't even believe he could say this at first. That he forced himself to open his mouth, squeeze out a few syllables instead of heavily breathing. That he could open his eyelids, look into the eyes in front of him and not even lose his mind. It is very important for him to ask. It is very important for him to find out the answer. While he still can ask and think coherently “If it isn’t? Will you let me go?”  
Sasuke wants to know that he can decide it himself.  
That he can choose.  
Sasuke wants to wait and he waits.  
Sasuke waits and Itachi pauses for a moment and then nods.  
Itachi looks at him directly and leads his chin down.  
Staying as serious as he can get.  
This is not enough for Sasuke and he, emboldened, demands:  
“No, say it aloud.”  
Itachi nods and calmly, as if none of this annoyed him, says exactly what was required of him. Word by word.  
“I will let you go if this is not what you want.”  
…if this is not.  
Sasuke's problem is that he doesn't want to be "friends" with either Ino or Sakura. Doesn't want to be friends with any of the girls at school.  
Doesn't want to be friends with any of the guys.  
He doesn’t want to… because none of them have ever reached the level of his adored elder brother.  
Or even the level of his ghost, imprinted in Sasuke’s memories.  
Even Sasuke himself never came close to Itachi.  
And he was always angry about it.  
And then, after this same brother deigned to take him back to the house and did not rush to collapse on his knees and immediately begin to apology... Sasuke began to hate him at all.  
For the fallen ideals, and for the fact that even with a cane and a damaged eye, he remained himself.  
Remained the same.  
He only grown older too.  
And now Sasuke don't want to stack some blocks with him, he’d rather...  
Itachi reaches down and Sasuke stops him with an open hand. Presses it to his lips and holds it there for a couple of moments.  
Sasuke stops him, and moving his hand to the side, carefully places it to the neck and then to the shoulder.  
Sasuke wants to make first step himself again.  
Wants to be the first.  
And he’s allowed to.   
For some reason Sasuke knows that he’ll be allowed to do a lot of things.  
Hug, hang, kiss and touch wherever he wants - for sure.  
Sasuke knows, and even though he's still a little scared, he can already handle it.  
Sasuke finally relaxes and no longer worries or rushes about.  
He only shudders slightly, feeling warm palms on his hips and thumbs crawl under stretched elastic of the shorts. And not only under it.  
He is stripped naked but still not assaulted.  
Sasuke knows that this is how it should be; knows that Itachi will give him time. To get used to it. He knows that he’ll be stroked and comforted for a long time.  
That Itachi’ll whisper anything that makes the skin redden both from the heat and from the voice itself.  
Sasuke closes his eyes and feels like he's not here at all.  
For the first time in so very long he is so relaxed and well.  
Almost flies.  
In absolute safety.  
Without any silly omissions.  
Sasuke closes his eyes and they are just together.  
Just lips to lips and it seems that even their pulse has synchronized. Both the warmth and the blanket miraculously turned out to be where it was needed. It seems that it simply cannot be better, it seems that nothing is able to spoil this moment.  
Sasuke is completely naked but he is not embarrassed or worried.  
He’s excited, aroused, even somewhat bewitched.  
Touches stop being innocent completely unexpectedly. Itachi's fingers roll down from his sides and the back and squeeze by the hips.  
They bend Sasuke’s knees and lead them behind the other’s back, suggesting how to cross ankles. How to hug with them too.  
“May I?..” Sasuke breathes it out during a short break between gentle kisses, and it comes out very frilly, as if he was running a long-long distance: “May I touch you?”  
Itachi nods curtly, and Sasuke doesn't know why he asked.  
Sasuke is touching him anyway.  
Sasuke’s clinging to him like a tick but for some reason running fingers along healed chest is still difficult.  
So he’s touching the back which seem to be wounded less.   
Of course, touching the belly and below is not something he’s ashamed of but... Sasuke’s face turns red immediately, as if it was dipped in paint.  
Sasuke is an awkward little schoolboy and remembers it.  
Sasuke bites his lip and unhooking his right hand from the other's neck, pushes it between their bodies.  
He touches the scars on the chest, scratches them lightly, as if he wanted to try them to the depth, notes that Itachi is not like what he used to think and slides his palm below.  
He knows that Itachi certainly won't push his fingers away.  
Sasuke is both ashamed and aroused.  
Because there’s the thought that he can touch even lower.  
And Sasuke knows that he will be touched everywhere.  
Like, literally everywhere.  
Sasuke knows that just a little more and he will be spread out and will not be allowed to cover himself with palms or to turn away.  
Sasuke is so sweet on this that he gasps and wants everything to happen faster.  
He wants and gains the courage to touch what he groped through brother's thin house pants.  
This is very bold for him.  
For him, the very thought that IT will be inside...  
“You're all burgundy.” Itachi whispers to him and Sasuke, not knowing where to run, pitifully parries with his lips:   
“It's dark in here...”  
He catches a grin in return and no one pity him anymore. Slow caresses turn into real passion and Sasuke ceases to be a soundless, embarrassed boy. Sasuke breathes noisily and screams softly as he is squeezed and bitten.  
Too much to be quiet.  
Itachi can't wait any longer, he finally got it, endured it, took great pains, and it’s just ENOUGH.  
Enough of him.  
Sasuke also thinks that that's enough.  
Sasuke thinks that they might need to go to another room but no one asks him, he’s pushed higher or armrest; his knees are spread to the sides in order to examine his whole body and then start acting as they both freeze.  
They freeze hearing a loud, piercing in the silence of the night and very familiar to both of them rattle of a key twisted in the front door lock.  
Sasuke, confused and scared half to death, doesn't get it right away.  
How?  
Who?  
Who can come to them?  
Who can come to their house in the middle of the night?  
Who can have the keys?  
Sasuke does not understand and in the meantime, the one who’s standing on the other side of the door opens it completely.  
Sasuke freezes and it finally dawns on him.  
He understands what's going on.  
Somebody entered their dark house, totally neglected from the side of the garden.  
Somebody, who’s happy to help himself to their property.  
Maybe this someone had been watching him, Sasuke, for several weeks and realized that he’s living here alone or with some old feeble guardian.  
Sasuke has his heart in his mouth.  
His mind is still floating in some kind of fog. Still aroused and yet terrified.  
He doesn't know what to do and doesn't know if he can get to the phone in time.  
His cell is lying around in the room.   
Their landline was disconnected ages ago.  
And who knows where’s Itachi's phone and whether he has one.  
Itachi… Itachi, who straightened as much as possible and just froze, turning towards the corridor.  
He just looks back and waits.  
Sasuke isn't sure, but perhaps he sees how his brother is vibrating a little.  
Almost every exposed muscle contracts and jaw muscles on the designated cheekbones are twitching.  
Sasuke doesn't ask or say anything.  
Sasuke is... paralyzed and only waiting.  
Shamefully helpless.  
He listens.  
How one prowls in the corridor, then looks into the kitchen... steps become closer.  
Hurried, heavy... closer.  
Now!  
Almost here!  
Sasuke's thoughts returns to all the morning news bulletins and the faces of random victims of such night robbers.  
Sasuke clearly sees the knife, curled downward, flashing in man’s hand.  
He does not understand how he appears be hidden under the blanket, which was thrown from above, and why he grabbed onto its edge and drags it higher and higher.  
No, Sasuke doesn't understand.  
Doesn't understand why Itachi is slowly getting to his feet, pushing himself off the couch’s back and reaching for his cane.  
Doesn't understand why he straightens up, leaning on it and turning back.  
He stands sideways.  
So that both the back and the ribs are open.  
For a possible blow.  
Sasuke is scared but he is also under a coating of apathy. He seems to be constrained by something terrible. Tied up and confused.  
Tied with an invisible wire.  
It’s a burglar, indeed.  
So stupid... this man really got his eye on an empty neglected house.  
On these empty dusty windows. Sasuke will definitely wash the windows, each and every one, on both floors. He’ll surely do it. If they both survive.  
The man is tall and wears all black.  
The man is strong-looking and probably prepared for his business.  
Sasuke has only one chilling fear against the knife, while Itachi has old injuries and the cane on which he rests.  
The robber has no mask on his face.  
The robber's face is covered with tattoos and this is the worst case of all.  
Sasuke knows what "special marks" are.  
Sasuke knows that those who saw them are rarely left alive.  
This scares him even more.  
He begins to gasp silently.  
With each quiet step striding distance between them.  
More and more.  
Less and less air remains in his lungs.  
Sasuke waits for Itachi to tell him to get out or run.  
Sasuke waits for something, but Itachi is silent and the numbness doesn't disappear.  
It’s till with him.  
Meters between.  
Itachi falls heavily to the right leaning on his cane. Itachi straightens his chest and extends his left arm along his body.  
Left arm, so useless against the wide blade of the knife.  
Between them, there’s a meter and the low table.  
The youngest Uchiha wants to close his eyes and press his face to his knees. He would have done so if he wasn’t paralyzed.  
He would like to miss the moment of stabbing.  
He would really, really want... to live without new mental trauma, but... but Itachi hits first.  
He comes to life a moment before the blade hits his ribs, dodges, and grabbing the cane higher, by the middle, swings it and hits.  
He first aims the handle to the jaw, then - higher on the nose, and making sure that the man is disoriented, knocks out the knife from hand.  
Itachi turns again, steps from one bare feet to another, hits other’s belly with his sore knee, and toppling the opponent on the carpet, does everything to make sure that he will not leave on his own two feet.  
Sasuke only blinks.  
Sasuke does not understand why his understanding, patient, courteous brother now prudently beats a man, who broke into their house, with the cane.  
All Sasuke can hear is a crunch.  
And no more yells.  
Sasuke sees a long, whitish flourish on Itachi's back and the way he holds his damn stick with a sharp dagger at the end.  
Sasuke clenches his jaw and closes his eyes.  
It is easier for him to breathe, in the darkness behind closed eyelids.  
Opening his eyes again, he sees the moment when Itachi slowly straightens up and turns around.  
It's funny but even in the darkness of the room their eyes meet and everything is so obvious that Sasuke feels inexplicable urge to laugh aloud.  
Sasuke can’t see his own facial expression but the one in front of him reveals a lot.  
His brothers face’s grimacing as if from a lapse or a pain.  
He's not ashamed, oh no.  
He feel vexation. He screwed the pooch… with such a nonsense.  
He withstood the whole year, and now...  
Itachi is a fucking genius.  
The great pretender. Sasuke would applauded him if he wasn’t feeling how something inside him is slowly dying at that very moment.  
Sasuke feels betrayed just like then.  
Despite the fact that so many years have passed.


	4. Chapter 4

Goes upstairs to his room and his legs are not even wooden but as if made of stone.

He goes upstairs to his room stepping on every step and, very quietly, as not to case creak pressing on the old lock, closes the door.

Turns the flimsy latch and as slowly as before, feeling nothing below his knees, gets to his loose bed.  
Dressed in the same clothing in which he came down.

In his idiotic pajamas.

In his idiotic, stupid and disobedient body.

Sasuke is a stranger to himself.

Sasuke doesn't know what should he do in the middle of this dusty little room that has long became his. Sasuke doesn't know what to do in this house now.

In this life.

Everything inside him burned out.

Again.

He hardly remembers how he waited for the police and he certainly doesn’t understand how he was dressed again. Doesn't remember if he said something or didn't say anything at all.

And it’s more like no - he didn’t.

His wonderful older brother spoke.

Something about how he heard screams. Something about how he, Sasuke, dozed on the couch and this one, in black, climbed into their house mistaking it for a long abandoned.

Long abandoned... Sasuke suddenly becomes funny.

He doesn't want to wash the windows anymore.

Not even one damn window on the first floor. And to brake them all with a bare hands - yes. He really wants to. With Itachi's hands or head.

Or no, he doesn't want his head.

To hit glass with head Sasuke will have to touch it.

Sasuke lowers his chin and realizes that he’s still wearing shorts, but a turtleneck isn’t his. The sleeves are long, and... the collar is chocking. Of course, it was needed; otherwise, not only the thief would have been taken. 

Otherwise... Sasuke furiously takes already hated piece of cloth over his head and throws it away without looking. Sasuke almost immediately regrets that he undressed because now he sees his chest and stomach. And even if there are pale gaps, than they’re just so insignificant that...

Blinks few times, lifts his head, breathes in nervously, almost on the verge of a sob, and turning, goes to the closet.

He needs something to cover it up.

Just anything.

A school shirt or a stupid ancient t-shirt with long sleeves and a stupid picture.

Anything.

Anything to hide it... how disgusting is that. How scary is that he’s no longer safe on this his second floor.

Ridiculously, Sasuke only now realizes this, taking three or four steps towards the shelves with clothes.

Sasuke freezes in the middle of the room and, yes, only now realizes that this is the end.

He no longer has personal, thin imaginary boundaries.

He has no sense of security.

He has nothing.

No second floor, no room.

It was never there.

Itachi could always... always could come up here. He could come in the middle of the night and stand in the doorway watching him, Sasuke, sleep. He could listen to what he was doing, standing there, in the hallway, or just watch Sasuke rush around the room, loosely closing the door.

‘Cause why would he close it, right? Why, if this is his floor!

If he's the only one who can climb the stairs!

Sasuke strongly squeezes his temples with fingers and it seems to him that his head begins to melt. Starting right from his cheeks. Cheeks which are hot, so hot that they are about to smell burning meat.

Burning skin, bone... and not brains.

Sasuke doesn’t have the latter.

Sasuke is a happy idiot.

He bought it like... Unable to bear it, he groans aloud, barely coping with the desire to sink straight to the floor and shrink into a little ball in slight hope that he will take less space and this EVERYTHING that fell on him will cease to be so vile and oppressive.

Barely, barely coping... and just as barely and slowly he reaches the closet, finds one of his T-shirts and pulls on it, backwards.

Now he simply can't pay attention to such trifles.

He sits down pressing his back to closed doors and just stares ahead.

On a shelves, which, in theory, were made for books, but are still littered with his old toys. He looks at a blackness under the bed and actually hopes that monsters exist.

Anyone would be nice right now.

He would love anyone as a replace for…

Sasuke leans even lower and pulls his knees closer to his chest. Hides his face and diligently pretends that he hasn’t heard it.

That he wanted to shrink just for no reason.

Of course, Sasuke didn't hear their front door slam.

"Their", ha... the front door of this house.

It’s just “this house” now.

Sasuke remains on the floor. Remains to be a bundle of some unfulfilled expectations, when steps are heard somewhere in the middle of the corridor and not in the stairs. As if the one who was walking suddenly realized that it would be nice to let know about his presence.

And he isn’t limping on a sore knee.

Isn’t leaning on a cane.

He doesn't need any cane at all.

There was never a need for this idiotic stick that destroyed all the floors of the first floor.

Sasuke is so angry that if he had strength, some very insignificant strength, he’d have jumped up and grabbed a stationery knife or at least a pen from the table.

Sasuke would be ready to defend himself against a slightest attempt to come closer.

Sasuke is ready even now.

He’s ready, really. Now he will get to his feet and straighten up, now he will be able to tell him everything. Or just hit him in the face properly for all these lies.

Will be able.

Right now.

Now.

Sasuke shrinks into a ball and pulls his knees even closer to chest. Squeezes his fingers into lock.

The steps are already here.

Right there, outside the door.

Sasuke hears old floorboards creak and he hears the clank of the turned knob.

It’s pressed from the other side.

It’s pressed and scrolled to the middle. Sasuke only closes his eyelids tightly, and even if he breathes, it does very little to save him from dizziness.

Sasuke waits if the door, which is still closed, will be shaken.

Waits, and no - only the handle is scrolled.

Back and forth... Half-turned back and forth, not reaching a treacherously loud click.

Sasuke even wonders - what now? What's next?

That’s interesting, but at the same he feels so absent minded and passive, that even thinks that it would be nice not to leave cold wooden floor anymore. Stay in this very place until the end of time without a single movement.

Just die and be covered with dust.

Only in order not to see that one anymore.

That one, who for some reason is still called his "brother".

That one... who came here without the cane and stands on the other side of the door now.

And who would think… he almost...

Nearly!

Sasuke freaks out and hits the back of his head against the closet door strongly, with feeling.

It comes out loudly, and the handle immediately stops twitching.

Sasuke slowly turns his head and just looks there. On a dull round hat and a piece of once-golden coating that fell off. He expects that it will move, even click after all, but no.

Footsteps disappears dissolving somewhere closer to the middle of the corridor.

Sasuke rests his chin on his knee and exhales.

The damned insomnia, as expected, hasn’t gone anywhere. But this is for the best.

If he falls asleep, then nightmares are surely provided for him.

Sasuke remains on this very place until dawn, then rises to his feet and begins to get ready for school. Takes a shower, checks the bag he packed in the evening.

Pulls his school shirt over his shoulders and buttons up all the buttons, purposely looking straight ahead rather than at a reflection in the mirror.

And his hair he combs exclusively by touch too. There is neither desire nor strength to look at himself.

However, he still has to.

Has to take a quick look, because otherwise he will not tie a tie. He won’t be able to check if the tight collar covers all purple spots.

If not, Sasuke will urgently come up with a sore throat.

Sasuke will really get sick with it, if only no one will see these damned spots burning on pale skin.

Yet then he’ll have to stay inside the house. Then he’ll have to fight off one's care and this is the last thing he needs.

Itachi is the last one he needs.

Definitely not.

He can go to hell together with his damned stick.

Sasuke exhales, fixes a stupid strand that is always sticking out, and decides to go back to his original plan.

To the one for which he tolerates it for so long.

To the one in which as soon as he comes of age he runs out of here and immediately sells his part of the house.

At once. In the same day. Finds an agency, and... and that's all.

All, yes. And at once.

He’ll endure it somehow.

Will definitely endure it, if he, such a determined and gathered person, will be now able to leave his room.

Stands in front of the door and cannot force his fingers to pull the latch.

Stands, and despite the fact that he knows that no one will beat him there, he simply cannot get out.

Can't bring himself to go out into the corridor and descend down the stairs.

Doesn't want to. Anything but this.

Not bypassing the living room. Not coming any close to HIS room. Sasuke is convinced that Itachi haven’t slept either and he surely isn’t sleeping now. Itachi must be eager to explain himself and put some pretty mask on his ugly truth. To lie again.

Sasuke is convinced that this is the case, and he knows that he isn’t ready to listen. Not ready for the fact that he’ll have to purse his lips and roll his eyes again. Not ready to ignore.

Not now.

Not after what happened at night. Not after what happened before this poor fellow in black chose the wrong house. Ironically, Sasuke feels sorry for him now.

But a little less than for himself.

Much less, actually.

Sasuke doesn't know what happened to the man.

Sasuke only heard the sounds of sirens and doesn’t remember if the body on a stretcher was completely covered with a sheet, or not.

Doesn't remember, and that's it.

He hardly remembers anything.

And, wow, who could guess, - it’s apparently because he doesn't want to remember.

He only looks at the door and slowly passes his tongue over lower lip. He turns to the window and hesitates for half a minute.

Why not, after all?

He's in his own house.

He wants out, not in.

He returns to the closet and finds a pair of spare shoes that have never been used before this day.

Sasuke never touches the doorknob. Only carefully, to avoid unnecessary sounds, removes the latch bolt and, in the same way, trying not to make noise, he raises a heavy wooden frame of the window.

Morning greets him with a freezing breath of unkind wind and a couple of cold drops torn from scarlet leaves of a maple growing nearby.

Sasuke takes a long minute to stare down, on a dead black clearing in the grass, and then, deciding not to hesitate anymore, jumps onto the windowsill and quickly throws his legs over it.

***

At school, as expected, he acts a little spacey after a sleepless night, but he’s so used to it that it comes as no difference.

Sasuke is deeply frozen and not noticing anyone around him even more than before.

This is his doctrine of armed neutrality with this world. As long as it doesn’t bother him. It’s an unkind, wary neutrality, and it’s threatening to crumble to dust any second.

Now, for example.

When Sasuke only wants some solitude and silence, just to overthink what’s happened and possibly take a nap for a few minutes.

“Does it seem to me or do you look somehow sick?” the voice that appeared on the border of his, Sasuke’s, nothingness, is clearly concerned and more than familiar. Only now, the youngest of the Uchiha is clearly not disposed to a dialogue. He has to deal with himself somehow, let alone the others. Voices from the outside of his head are coming as if through thick water layer, and it irritates more than usually.

“It seems to you, Sakura.”

Sasuke is politeness itself, and despite the fact that he doesn’t have the strength for it, he even opens one eye. Nevertheless, he didn’t mistook. It’s Sakura, for real. A very-very worried Sakura, to be exact. 

“Definitely not.”

And to be even more exact – it’s a Sakura who’s touching him for some reason.

“Your forehead is hot and your eyes are red. Maybe you should see a doctor?”

“Maybe you should speak low?” Sasuke hisses back and pulls away from her palm. Caring means caring, thank you, very touching and everything like that, but he doesn't need all this, “Someone else will hear.”

Someone restless and already landed on the opposite edge of the table.

“Hey there!”

Sasuke thinks that unbearable itch between his temples has noticeably intensified by the very sound of that cheerful voice.

“What are you whispering about?”

“Sasuke is ill and doesn’t want to talk about it.”

Sakura is deeply concerned; Naruto rolls his eyes.

“Because he's not some little snot to complain about it, right?” Naruto says and hits him in the shoulder with heavy fist. Sasuke powerlessly brushes off the hand and immediately confirms aloud:

“Yes. Fuck off.”

“I’m here, actually taking care of you and so on.”

Naruto doesn't take offense. It's a kind of ritual for them. They swear five times a day, and in extremely rare cases, the digit can reach ten. But, when necessary, they can come to agreement and work teamwise. They even seem to train well together.

“Could you please leave your ‘so on’ with you?”

“You want Sakura to take care of you, huh?” Naruto winks at him and pulls his lips out to feign a kiss.

Sakura immediately blushes and hits him in shoulder.

Sasuke, on the other hand, doesn't give a damn about all the jokes, he only nods and places his cheek more comfortably on his forearm.

“Even Sakura is better than you.”

Sakura, who is silent all the time and just sits next to him. Who turns nicely pink at the mention of her name, but doesn't say anything. Doesn't annoy. She’d have done it before, but now she has grown older, and unlike Naruto, knows when to talk to him and when not to.

“She is not that clingy and doesn’t try to put her bottom on my notebooks.”

“How petty you are.”

“I’m no ‘petty’, I just don’t want to rewrite everything over again,” he explains quite seriously and runs into a look full of concern.

“Is it really possible that you got sick?” Naruto frowns and also tries to touch his forehead. And, as expected, gets a rap on the knuckles, not even having time to reach the skin, “You’re not swearing at me… almost.”

“I just didn't get enough sleep.”

Actually, he won't be able to sleep for the next two years, at all. But will he ever tell about it? No way, under no circumstances.

“Go to your place at last. You really make me sick.”

Sakura leaves too, but finally says her obligatory phrase:

“If you need something...”

Yet she doesn’t finish, interrupted by a series of quick nods. And must be leaving offended. Could be. Sasuke doesn't know.

“Yes. Yes. I’ll tell.”

Sasuke waits until he’s finally alone and lays his chest on the desk. He would never allow himself to do this, but today it’s quite possible to lie like this for the rest of a change. It is quite possible to close eyes and reflect a little, lulled by the background noise.

Sasuke has no idea what to do now.

Despite the fact that he seemed to plan everything, he doesn’t know for sure.

There’s a riot inside, and it feels as if some kind of catastrophe has happened. Maybe even without “it seems”. Sasuke feels so disgusting that he wants to plunge into a tank full of some poisonous disinfectant. However even that way he won’t be able to wash out traces HIS hands left on him. However if one’d bend the collar of the shirt, he’ll see the prints left from HIS teeth.

Sasuke bites his lips and still can't make himself understand how is it possible.

Can't understand why.

Why?!

Why is it happening to him again?

Why did Itachi decide to go for the second round? Why the hell is he doing all this?

Decided to play on pity? Decided that it would be easier to accept or let him in? What was he even thinking of? …What? 

Sasuke narrows his eyes, remembering how he ran upstairs. How he was sure that there, behind numerous steep steps, he was completely safe. That there was only his territory and there he could be absolutely calm. That no one’ll touch him – no one’ll reach him.

Simply because he couldn’t.

Just because the damn knee wouldn’t allow.

Sasuke hears the whoosh of the cane in his head.

Hears it without even concentrating.

Shudders and shrinks.

Probably, in such cases, it’s allowed not to come to school and therapy with a psychologist is indicated. Probably. Sasuke doesn't know. He doesn’t want to see any psychologist.

He doesn’t want spilling his guts to anyone, he doesn’t want to stay at home.

He no longer has his safe room. He has this hollow nothing again.

And all because of lies, just think! How many empty lies!

Sasuke, forgetting himself, nearly beats on the tabletop, but having thought better of it in time, only straightens up. Does it just a second before the bell rings and forces himself to concentrate on the lesson.

Listens even more attentively than usual, because he won’t have such luxury at home. At home, he won’t be able to hide behind something else and escape from his thoughts.

***  
Every step taking him away from school is difficult, and it seems that the day, unimaginably long in all the other weeks, has passed too quickly. Once - and that's it - all the lessons flew like one. Even the most boring ones, which usually stretch like a disgusting chewing gum melted in the sun; one that you’ll never tear off your sneaker’s sole.

Even the most boring ones has ended, and it’s over now; now he needs to drag himself back home.

Now he needs to cook dinner for himself and do his homework.

Now he certainly won't be able to slip to the second floor unnoticed, and even if he succeeds... So what?

What? Itachi, as if nothing had happened, will take his stick and start playing the lame again?

Then he's a complete idiot.

Sasuke even wants him to be an idiot for a second, but he himself is too far from stupid to hope for this.

Sasuke doesn't allow himself to hope.

Sasuke won't forgive for the second time.

Let him burn in hell with his reasons and with his stick.  
That’s all.

He decided in the morning: everything will be as before.

They don't talk. They live on their own sides of the house.

Dishes, things, debit cards - everything is different.

Even eye contact is optional.

Once again, resolutely EVERYTHING must be divided.

Sasuke draws a line by slowly rearranging his legs, draws all his attention on this tomfoolery and therefore flinches from a loud shout and subsequent blow to the shoulder.

He didn't see it coming and, of course, he didn't expect it.

He didn’t expect Naruto to follow him and therefore he couldn’t even kick him off right on spot and move on.

“What do you need?” Sasuke asks, so confused that he barely recognizes his own voice. He has to deal with his global problems… and then there's this one. Enormously happy about something and shines with his teeth. No, they are definitely from different planets, “I didn’t take your notebooks.”

"Yes, I know," Naruto nods and smiles from ear to ear.

All-suspicious Sasuke finds this odd. He even stops and starts listing:

“I didn't take lunch either.”

“Yeah.”

“And the dinner too.”

“Yeah.”

“And if you sowed your indoor shoes somewhere again...”

“No, no!” Naruto even waves his hands, unhappy that he is constantly reminded of the same moronic incident, “Everything is fine with me!”

“And?..”

“What is ‘and’?”

They always didn’t understand each other very well, but at such moments, Sasuke really wants to google if someone has already invented a translator from the language of such joyful inadequacies to a simple, human one.

“Then why did you stick to me, dullard?”

Sasuke got so tired during the week, that now he has no time to be polite. After all, his entire margin of politeness ran out after the second lesson, on the girls from his class.

“It seems to me that you are pale. Some kind of bluish even. Well, in general, you’ve got a very unhealthy color.”

Sasuke exhales slowly through his nose and, mentally congratulating himself on the founding of his personal circle of people deeply concerned about his health, resumes his step.

Naruto stays close and continues to chatter thoughtfully, throwing his schoolbag over his shoulder.

“And Sakura thinks so too, which is why we decided it would be better if one of us guides you. Well, you know, just in case.”

“So you and Sakura decided..?”

Yeah.

So they’ve decided unanimously. Sasuke knows how it works. She asked Naruto to do that in order not to look like a foolish girl chasing a guy, and Naruto agreed simply out of the kindness of his soul.

“Well yes. What?”

He’s really a fool, oh god. Innocent, he only now began to suspect something.

“Wait, do you want Sakura to accompany you?”

And made the wrong conclusions.

How unexpected.

“I want to walk alone. No accompanying persons.”

Wants to reflect and be silent, alone with his own feelings and thoughts. So that no one gets in his head and distracts with outbursts of irritation. But, apparently, Sasuke has done something wrong. He behaved badly.

“But really, you are greenish since the very morning. What if you’ll fall somewhere and smash your head,” these are clearly Sakura's words. She had to convince Naruto somehow that she was sending him to make a good deal, “Whose papers am I going to cheat off while you’re in hospital?”

“Someone just as kind and infinitely patient as I’m,” …and more friendly. Why didn’t he choose someone who wants to be friends from the start? It seems to be logical, no?

“Let’s go, just don't talk a too much, okay?” Sasuke asks, and Naruto nods understandingly and even speaks more quietly:

“Your head hurts?”

“It hurts.”

“It's because you spend too much time on your lessons.”

However, Naruto’s "quieter" is only enough for exactly two phrases. Then he screams and laughs again. Right into Sasuke’s right ear, trying to throw his hand on Uchiha’s shoulder.

“According to this logic, yours never hurts.”

“Well yes. I don't remember being sick.”

Sasuke glances at him, like at some rare yellow bug, and exhales slowly. Sasuke sometimes really, without irony or attempts at sarcasm, envies Naruto. He envies how simple everything is to him, without dark muddiness in his mind. And there is no older brother with the devil hiding behind the eyes and the damned killing cane.

Sasuke is jealous of Naruto because he openly says what he thinks and is not shy about it. Shares, damn it, his thoughts with the world and doesn’t get upset when this very world refuses to understand him.

Sasuke doesn't need an understanding of the whole world.

Sasuke would prefer to understand himself.

And that would be enough for now.

“And the house in which you live with your brother, is it like your Uchiha family house?”

“It’s like our family house, yes.”

“And how many rooms do you have?”

“One.”

“Why only one?”

“And how many are needed?”

“Well, I do not know. Could take an entire floor. Arrange yourself a bedroom, playroom...”

“To put a pool with multicoloured balls there?”

“Yes! Cool!”

“What are you, ten?”

“Why are you always such a toad? Spiteful and malicious, you don't understand jokes, you always walk around with such a face.”

“Because this is my usual face, and I’m no toad, Naruto. Heck. Hold it.”

Sasuke hands Naruto his bag and bends over to tie his shoe. Everything immediately become spinning a little, and the lack of sleep becomes more than obvious too. Lack of sleep softly reminds of itself, pressing on the top of his head with nearly unbearable pain, and Sasuke promises himself that he will fall asleep as soon as he crosses the threshold of the house.

Right away.

And there will be no expression of concern for lessons and Itachi.

Everything after.

He’ll wake up in the morning and do everything.

Will wake up when this one, who’s his brother, will be sleeping.

Or he won't. Doesn’t matter.

Sasuke has his own plans that do not include outsiders. Sasuke is going to do everything according to the plan. If there was one thing to tell about Sasuke it’s that he has enough of obstinacy.

No wonder – he’s also an Uchiha after all.

Sasuke won't play any games like Itachi. Will not invent any sick tactics and stick to them. Sasuke will make it easier.

“And then I say...”

He barely hits into an arm flying dangerously close to his face, and that's why he turns on. Floats out of his thoughts and frowns, asking again:

“What?”

Naruto even stops walking and rolls his eyes.

“Did you even listen to me?”

Wow, he can also be grumpy. When strongly dislike something, apparently. Just like it’s happening now, but at least he doesn’t scream blaming everything and everyone. Good enough already. Thanks already.

“In fragments”

“You could at least lie that you was listening.”

“What for?”

“Well...” Naruto gets lost at first, and then says as if prompts to one of them, “Out of politeness?”

Sasuke shrugs instead of answering, and they travel the rest of the way in silence. And if one is not oppressed with that in any way, then the second... Sasuke was watching Naruto out of the corner of his eye; how he looks at the windows and other people's well-groomed gardens. How he peers behind the fences and waves his hand in front of the very noses of dogs poking their heads between the bars.

He’s damn crazy.

Everything interests him and so he climbs everywhere. Knows that will get enough bumps on his sick head there, but still climbs. It's hard for Sasuke to understand this irrepressible urge to poke exactly where troubles await this blondie ass.

And they are guaranteed to await there, without a chance to get out.

But this is even better, damn it. This is so much more interesting.

Sasuke shakes his head slowly and darkens, noticing the familiar fence from afar.

A year ago, being smaller, he probably would have preferred to run away somewhere and let Itachi look for him together with police or even hounds, but now he already understands that he won’t do it.

Because he can't skip school.

Because then the others will intervene and something will definitely turn up.

Bruises on his side, for example, or bite marks on his neck, or a couple of hickeys under collarbones... Sasuke involuntarily blushes, remembering this all.

Sasuke is embarrassed by the very fact of having Naruto chatting about something by his side.

Even if he cannot hear his thoughts.

They're buddies or something. Classmates, at least.

Sasuke is just embarrassed.

In his own body.

He would like to jump out of it and, at least temporarily, take someone else’s.

Vicarious.

Sasuke wants to give up all his misunderstandings and just forget his address.

Instead, he stubbornly rearranges his legs and, hiding his hands deeper in the pockets of his trousers, drags himself towards the house. To the house, where, judging by the light in in the kitchen, someone’s waiting for him.

It's still quite light outside... Evening has just began... Sasuke exhales and grips his teeth tightly.

Itachi is not in his room, wow.

Something new.

Apparently, that's all.

No more games in helplessness.

No more pretense.

Sasuke exhales through his nose and awkwardly says goodbye to Naruto right at the gates. Even waves at him and only then goes up the porch.

Climbs the stairs carefully, almost without stepping on the heel, but how much help is it if the chest is like a big drum?

Every step is a resounding blow.

Sasuke isn't scared. Sasuke just doesn't want to go inside. Sasuke doesn't want to talk.

He’ll just fall asleep and that's it.

Just fall on his bed without any silly questions.

Cover his head with a pillow and that's enough.

The front door is unlocked.

All he needs is to press the handle slightly.

The door creaks as if the last time it was fixed happened approximately bloody never, and it doesn't just infuriate Sasuke - it destroys his entire will.

Sasuke hates this sound with every cell in his body.

Hates these treacherous doors, locks, and floorboards.

Hates this damn, immediately treated him house.

Sasuke is no master here, thanks for a hint, yet he was well aware of it from the start. He knows. He's here just as one more dust collector waiting to become antique. Up to his official twenty.

And, who could guess, there really is a light in the kitchen. Who could guess, it turns out that Itachi knows which way to turn the switch on the stove.

This is news.

Sasuke would certainly have said something rather sarcastic, but he doesn't talk to that one.

He’s done with this.

He's gone NO again.

Takes off his shoes, runs his fingers over his face, brushes off strands, freezes on the lower step of the stairs, and realizing that there’s no one rushing out to him to grab his hands and stop him, blinks and drags himself into the kitchen.

Well, he needs to wash his hands.

He needs to look in the fridge and check what’s there in order to know whether he will starve to death today or not.

He needs to stop deceiving himself.

At some point in the future, some other time.

Sasuke only wants to see.

Only wants to look in the eye. Down here, on safe territory, and not when Itachi will show up in his room. Yes, exactly, that's exactly what he wants. Sasuke just doesn't want to delay.

Sasuke wants to know what to be prepared for.

And that’s all - he’s not asking for much.

Something is frying; something is boiling in a pan.

Sasuke cautiously walks forward, and the first thing he sees is a cane leaning against the refrigerator.

This stick is what he sees and not Itachi sitting at the table with a book.

Itachi, not demonic at all, not evil and surely not falling to his knees. Not right away as Sasuke walks into the kitchen, not even three seconds later when they meet with eyes.

“Hello,” Itachi smiles at him and Sasuke slowly steps forward towards the table, “How was school?”

Sasuke blinks and for a minute or more and just tries to digest it all. It's just... What?

“Are you kidding?”

“No?” Itachi replies as if he doubted it himself. He turns a page, dog ear its corner, and closes the book. Smiles even wider, “Will you have dinner?”

“You... you...”

Sasuke seems to be gasping for real, very seriously. Sasuke just chokes on air and words. The first is not enough and the second presses on him heavily. It just suffocates him.

Sasuke cannot move nor can he force himself to close his mouth.

And it just feels monstrous.

It feels like sheer helplessness.

Itachi gets to his feet, goes around the countertop and, standing up to the stove, takes a ladle.

“Soup or rice with vegetables?”

Sasuke can only open and close his mouth. He really can't do anything else now.

And then Itachi just shrugs and puts two full plates in front of him. It's so easy. So easy. 

Smiles for the tenth time and returns to his seat.

Sasuke exhales slowly, out of the corner of his eye mentions the knob on the damned cane, and finally comes to life.

Finally, lifts his leg off the floor and slowly, with trembling fingers, grabs the edges of hot plate. Looks up at Itachi, and overcoming the first impulse, simply carries the plate to the sink.

Mercilessly overturns everything there and throws the plate on top.

Somehow manages not to brake it and, straightening his back, washes hands scrupulously.

Throws the second plate in the trash, slams the cabinet door and puts the kettle on.

That’d be enough for him.

“Say what you want, I'll cook.”

Stops and regrets that it was the sink and not the face. However, the pan is still on the stove. Sasuke can make use of it anytime.

Itachi is so calm that his brother even doubts if he really did it all. Maybe just in his head? Maybe he just imagined it? But no, it was for real. Yet Itachi is completely fine. He never noticed.

Still in place and even smiles.

Still smiling.

Sasuke was expecting that he'd have to fight Itachi off.

He expected that before he even crosses the threshold of the house, Itachi would literally jump on him with apologies. That he will be given three thousand reasons justifying all this shit. And in the end Sasuke never gets even one.

Sasuke gets soup.

And this awesomely polite "how are you?" after which he fells an unbearable urge to knock out one’s front teeth.

Sasuke slides off the reality even deeper than yesterday.

Because what the fuck is that?

What's happening?

“Are you ok?” Itachi even becomes a bit glum, wow. Itachi clasps his outstretched arms into a lock and looks truly worrying. Perfect, reference elder brother! Dream of many, “So pale...”

“Shut up!” Sasuke wasn't going to talk to him at all. Wasn’t going to yell and stomp his feet. I wasn't going to get hysterical. Sasuke is almost shrieking at him now and didn’t hit him only by some miracle. Because he really, really wants to, “You lied to me! Lied to me for a whole year! WHAT FOR?!”

Itachi shrugs and slowly looks away. Just a couple degrees to the right. So that Sasuke's face is no longer seen. So that it was possible hide behind eyelashes for a moment and then return to his eyes again.

“I thought it would be easier for you.”

“What?!”

“Easier to resign yourself to me. If I’ll be…” Itachi pauses, as if not knowing which word to choose, and Sasuke does it for him. Sasuke doesn’t understand anything at all and is about to break loose and cry aloud, like a girl who skinned her knee in front of a class. Cry not because it hurts. Cry out of stupid resentment.

“Weak?..”

Sasuke can’t believe he himself managed to utter it. Just because how? Just because what? Did his older brother want to appear weak? Is this really his older brother?

Sasuke looks at him like he’s an alien and can't believe.

Really can't believe Itachi wants to subscribe to this. Agree to this derogatory word. Wants… - Sasuke even turns to the cane leaning against the fridge -… this. And Sasuke doesn't care about his brother’s reasons.

“Safe,” Itachi corrects, and if he shows anything, then only slightly more prominent cheekbones. Itachi keeps that light half-smile on his lips and softness in his gaze.

Sasuke doesn't know if he considers himself any guilty.

Does he feel guilty or doesn’t even understand why there is so much overreacting.

Is it any possible?

"I'm not safe right now," he objects, and Itachi frowns subtly. He reaches with his index finger to his temple, but in the end doesn’t even touch it. Stops his hand in the air.

“Of course you're safe.”

The very thought of the opposite irritates him. Sasuke understands it this way. Sasuke doesn't know any other ways. He feels like an idiot hovering between the stove and the table. Hungry, unable to think after a sleepless night, an idiot who is about to begin to get his words wrong.

“You were always safe with me.”

Of course!

Sasuke expected this, really.

Both these words and this gaze.

Sasuke knew he would hear something like that. Of course he “is safe"! After what he saw at night, there’s no slightest doubt it that. He will be protected, right. It’s just…

“From anything except for your lies.”

And he smiles now. He grins in response to his brother's light half-smile, and this unexpectedly punches Itachi better than any words. Itachi, who’s wrinkling his forehead more noticeably now and wearily touches the bridge of nose.

He didn't sleep either.

Not at night, not during the day.

Sasuke knows this somehow. Sasuke feels immeasurably better with this knowledge.

“Listen…”

But don't Itachi dare to lull him with this measured mumbling. No need to pull the wool over and talk to him like he’s a child.

The latter infuriates so much that Sasuke can’t help but shout.

“What?! A new brainchildren of yours?!” Sasuke himself doesn’t understand how he begins to yell, and immediately hits the tabletop with both hands. Strongly, with might, so that fingers burn and wrists ache. So that there is no way to return to a calm, normal speech. And so that’s almost a whisper now. Crocked, convulsive and idiotic, “Will you say that someone forced you? Will you come up with any other reasons?”

His voice seems to break again.

Like it rises and lowers again.

Like it’s something with his ligaments.

“No,” Itachi’s watching with his head thrown back a little, and he looks quite healthy. Itachi always looked healthy. Itachi never had muscle atrophy or deep purple shadows under his eyes, “There are no other reasons.”

Even now he continues to act as if nothing unusual have happened. It’s nothing, really. Well, he failed a little. Happens to all of us.

He’ll mend his ways, maybe apologize. Make soup.

It's easy for him.

“Is that all?” Sasuke doesn’t understand that he is lurching and is about to fall on the table with his chest. Sasuke's knees are shaking.

“Yes. All.”

“All your excuses?” he asks in a whisper, and he seems to be hinting at the fact that something more is needed. That Itachi has to say something else! Something! At least... Sasuke doesn't know what. Sasuke doesn't understand how he can just sit and stare like this, point-blank, and just nod.

“All I wanted to say.”

“And there will be no beautiful fairytale?” Sasuke would be better off not saying that. Honestly, it would be much better. It's redundant. It’s stupid, it’s simply unworthy of him. It’s... something he wants to return and just crumple it back into his mouth, “You had all day to compose it, and you didn't even have the decency to think properly?”

He is still whispering.

He's an idiot.

He knows.

Itachi smiles in his face.

“You want a fairytale?” he asks so openly and with no subtext that Sasuke stops breathing, “Tell me which one. I'll read you a bedtime story.”

Sasuke stops breathing, straightens up and, turning on his heels, grabs the first thing that he managed to catch with his eyes. He grabs the handle of damned, polished with a thousand touches cane, and, not remembering himself, swings.

Despair drowns him.

There’s so much of it, that he chokes.

Chokes and swallows.

Chokes and dies out.

Swings blindly across the table, doesn't even understand how Itachi appears right behind him and just rips the stick out of his shaking, trembling fingers.

Once – and it’s done.

Like if he wasn’t holding anything at all.

Two – and it falls on the floor.

Three – and he’s held with two arms.

Tightly, across his chest.

Sasuke is flapping like a bird caught by a predator, but he can’t even hit his brother back properly. Because he can’t see a thing.

Sasuke just doesn't know how to fight him.

How?!

If Itachi just doesn't take his words?!

“Let me go!”

Sasuke is desperate and doesn't know if he has experienced more over the past few weeks. He wasn’t shivering like that last night or in the morning. He is really shaking now. He’s being thrown from side to side, and all he can do is try to bite the hand that’s holding him across shoulders. And it’s so pathetic that he freezes. As if he sees himself from the outside. Sees both of them.

“That's not what you want,” Itachi speaks directly behind his ear and presses Sasuke’s back closer to himself. Stays confidently on both legs and just holds. Simply fixes the body in two places and even if Sasuke try to kick him or rip his hand with teeth, he won't let go. But that's not the worst thing. The worst thing is the confidence in his voice. It presses more than hands.

“And you know what I want better than I do?” first in a whisper and then again, as if gaining strength, he answers with a shout: “Well, come on, tell me! What do I want?!”

“You want me to tell you a truth that suits you. To make everything good and painless.”

Sasuke arches, tries to shove him away. Tries to hit, to shut him up, but still can't. Can't even punch the top of head against his nose. With every passing second, Sasuke feels more and more miserable and useless. Sasuke feels how he’s slowly corroded by what he hears.

“But I don’t have this truth. I deceived you.”

It's that easy.

He deceived and that's all.

Take it as you like.

He deceived - and Sasuke has to stand here with him now, pressing against warm chest and thinking about how to force himself to breathe further.

Sasuke doesn't know. Sasuke is probably too young to be able to assemble himself in parts quickly, but Itachi knows. Itachi slowly turns him, still holding tightly. Turns his face towards his own, and to be sure, presses him on the tabletop. Zero distance between.

“I didn’t tell you everything to get closer,” Itachi strokes his cheek and holds his chin. Strokes him and touches the lower lip. Itachi releases his face and, holding him with both hands now, takes another half step forward and seats him on the table, “So that you let me get closer.”

That's all.

Sasuke blinks.

Once, twice, and he is already being hugged.

He’s caressed on the back and shoulders, pressed on the neck in order to lay his cheek on the shoulder, and suddenly feels how the collar of the school uniform is being straighten.

Sasuke hates him.

And hates himself even more.

Himself, at least for the fact that when everything finally began to spin and slide, for some reason, his fingers chose as a support not the edge of the table but someone else's warm sweater.

Sasuke clings to it somewhere in the area of Itachi's shoulder blades. Clings, and turning his head, rests his forehead under the collarbone.

And hatred at this moment is stronger than ever.

He will not forgive.

No.

He cannot forgive.

It can't do so many things.

Can’t sob, for example.

Chokes on the first one and bites his tongue. He can’t. He forbids it. He won’t.

Swallows the second one... clenches soft cloth with his fists.

It's all from nerves. 

Sasuke knows - these are the echoes of the night. Sasuke knows he will be covered with it. He got scared and so on. He knows it's okay. It's... it's always like that.

It's good that it didn’t start at school. It's good that almost no one sees.

“Let go...” he wants it to sound like an order, but that’s clearly not even a request. He whispers it somewhere through the fabric and presses his lips to it. His head is very, very heavy. Sasuke can’t even straighten on his own.

“Why, if you don't want to?” Itachi responds in a low voice too, barely audible, and rests his chin on younger’s head. Just stands close and keeps stroking.

Runs his fingers through brother’s hair, touches his shoulders...

“I want,” Sasuke jerks away from him and sits up straight. Immediately realizes that "jerk away" is too bold to say. He can only raise his head to look up and stop hypnotize folds in the fabric. He can look into the eyes and it's something, anyway. His head is very heavy, but his mind become a little more clear. The uninvited hysteria, which never developed into full force, almost retreated, “How did you even come up with this? How are you... What are you doing during the day?”

Sasuke realizes with horror that he cannot shut up. He just got carried away, and that's it. He talks like he's been bitten by one socially active idiot and can't shut his mouth. He's terrified, really. His wide eyes must be telling something Itachi because he smiles again and puts his finger to Sasuke’s lips.

“Where was you leaving the house? And the scars? It’s not from the accident, you...”

And when it didn’t work, literally closes his mouth with whole palm and gently presses his fingers on lips:

“Shh, calm down…”

Itachi smiles and slightly bending his neck gently pushes Sasuke with his forehead.

“We will talk. You’ll get some rest and we'll talk,” he promises, but Sasuke disagrees. Pushes him away, shakes his head and suddenly realizes that he is done. He can no longer construct meaningful phrases.

“You again…”

“What?” Itachi grimaces but keeps close, still pressing his forehead against Sasuke's, and the whole this scene looks more than comical. Comical, despite the tragedy of the situation.

Sasuke wants to laugh now.

“Again me...”

Laugh and cry of helplessness at the same time.

“What's ‘again’?” Itachi prompts him, suggests an idea, and at the same time he himself has already caught youngest by the neck. He himself touches cheekbone and strokes the corner of mouth with his thumb.

Itachi is already pressing on chin and not really listening.

But has he ever listened to him? Or was he only coddling him all the time? Like if Sasuke was a child!

“You're screwing me again!” Sasuke shoves him away immediately. And doesn’t understand what’s the source of his newfound strength. Apparently, it was the anger - what else could it be, “You're lying to me again. You make promises. And tomorrow you will pretend that nothing happened! Fuck you!” 

The latter comes out especially loudly and directly in the face. The latter is said together with shoving Itachi in the shoulders again and obtaining a great desire to run upstairs. After all, he’s not dying yet. He will eat later. Or buy something on the way to school. Or he'll get out in the night. Just like in the morning. Through the window.

He softened here.

Felt warmth... such an idiot.

“Sasuke!”

The idiot who almost got caught again. Idiot whom Itachi tries to hug and stop before he leaves the kitchen. And there are no more thin smiles, no calm looks. There is none of this. Who could guess, wow, it disappeared! And what, does it mean that he care?

That he’s not so right after all?

“I said - fuck off!” Sasuke throws off those hands again and, against his own instinctive desire to go straight into the corridor, steps back to the stove. Hopes to go around the table and get out from behind it. Freaks out and understands that the last thing he wants now is to find his own ass comfortably placed on the tabletop again. No more weaknesses, “Don't you dare touch me!”

“Enough, Sasuke,” Itachi looks straight into the eyes, taking small steps forward. Looks so that it hypnotizes a little, yes, but not as strongly as it should, not as before. And so, it no longer works.

“Say my name again and I'll hit you,” Sasuke promises him without any aplomb or fury. Promises so coldly that Itachi stops, “With a chair or cane. Whatever comes to hand.”

He promises calmly and actually believes that he will.

Honestly believes.

Too angry. For himself as well. No more warm hands. No pulling wool over his ears.

Nothing.

He had a chance to try, start all over again after dumping him, after forgetting him in the middle of nowhere without explaining any reasons. There was a chance and he never used it.

Sasuke forgave once.

Forgave the cripple who never existed.

How many times did he scold himself for hurting him? For making him bend down or kneel in the fucking bathroom?

No, he tries to come close - and Sasuke will break a chair on him. If not this one, than some other. From the living room.

And after that he will sit at the table half-smiling like this, shrugging his shoulders, and saying that he has no excuses. That he just wanted to.

That he liked listening to the cane scratching floor tiles.

Sasuke breathes slowly through his nose. Each breath is a hard work for him.

Sasuke barely pushes this mixed with rage air into his lungs and, making sure that now no one’ll try to joggle and swaddle him, moves towards the corridor.

They look at each other, yet Sasuke does it only because he fears that he’ll be caught again. Itachi seems to be frozen.

He's just watching.

Sasuke can finally exhale only at the stairs. Only on the first steps, where he, feeling strangling, angrily tugs at the tie, almost tearing the top buttons out of their buttonholes.

He needs to breathe.

Maybe he should go out to the porch or something.

No, better open the window in the room. And just as soon as he thinks about it, he hears steps on the other side of the door. Fast and light.

Hears and freezes.

Associations go in the very wrong direction.

The associations vividly remind him of how he was feeling yesterday night. What was it like to be covered by absolute silence and then suddenly hear someone scratching the front lock of your door.

However, the vision disappeared as instantly as it came.

Disappeared with a quick, uneven knock on wooden panels.

Sasuke exhales and jumps off the steps.

Looks through the peephole and not even surprised when sees cheerful Naruto, with whom he said goodbye recently.

Exhales, hastily turns over his shoulder, makes sure that there’s no one behind him, and turns the lock.

And he doesn't even have time to open his mouth.

“And I forgot to return your bag, can you imagine?”

Yes. Sasuke can imagine, and it cases him to facepalm immediately. He himself forgot that, in fact, people are not going to school empty-handed.

“Here. I’ve run to give it.”

“Thanks,” Sasuke even smiles at him. As sincerely as it’s possible now. He really needs his notebooks. At least to stay in his mind tonight, “Thanks for coming back.”

“Come on, it’s nothing,” Naruto smiles wider and pats him on the shoulder. Automatically looks down at relaxed tie knot and freezes staring somewhere at the line of shirt collar.

Unbuttoned collar.

Sasuke freezes.

Sasuke swallows slowly, thanks him for the help again, and pulls the door toward, closing it.

Realizes that he’s in trouble now.

Raises his head, and now yes. Now he’s being watched from the kitchen entrance.

Sasuke stubbornly stares back, throwing his head up and, without a word, goes upstairs.

That’s what people call being in too deep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome to PDCaSHA, people deeply concerned about Sasuke's health association. Choose your fighter.
> 
> Sakura: you're kinda blue  
> Naruto: nah, it's greenish  
> Itachi: ...so pale...  
> ***  
> I'm waiting for chapter 5 now. There's no much hope that it will be out soon... especially if I kill Desa myself. Phew, but I promise to start working on it as soon as it's published. Let's wait together:)

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading this:) Please, feel free to leave your comments below.  
> The original text is in progress, it now has 4 chapters. (i'm ready to sell my soul to read 5-th chapter right now)  
> I'M LOOKING FOR BETA, pls contact me if you have a little free time for this project -> hollowlandsstuff on tumblr  
> I have author's permission for this translation.  
> 


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